Their work rate and drug habits mean they’d have been more accurately named Slack or Smack. Over the last 20 years Shack have become synonymous with bad luck, bad timing and bad habits; but they still have the knack of turning out perfectly formed psychedelic acoustic (they still sound acoustic even when they’re electric!) pop songs using The Byrds and Love as their starting point.
Liverpool brothers Mick and John Head’s first band was the Pale Fountains who pretty much drowned in a surplus of record company cash and overproduction.
There was a feyness running through Indie Pop in the early 80’s with bands like Orange Juice, the Farmers Boys. Bands and fans wore Hawaiian shirts, shorts and hats. There were allusions to jazz and mutterings about Burt Bacharach. The early Pale Fountains sessions for John Peel included songs like The Norfolk Broads which was definitely a part of that era, nostalgic whimsical, trumpet noodling.
Their first single for Virgin, Thank You was blown up to Eurovision Song contest standard of pointless orchestral lushness. The album Pacific Street was a confused mix of Astrud Gilberto Latin pop and more straightforward, straight ahead acoustic stomps like Natural. I saw them twice at the Hacienda, once around 1982 as the fragile band of the early sessions, short of material and (very probably) in shorts. Second time around I disparagingly thought of them as an acoustic rockin’ Alarm. With hindsight I may have been wrong about that gig (although not about thinking of The Alarm as a bad thing).
Second album From Across the Kitchen Table worked better and contained the excellent Jeans Not Happening, a song, which I think, captures the strengths and source of Mick Head's songwriting.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p6RFhVib1uw
It’s a song which combines the goofy gee whizz phrasing of someone imagining what the 60’s were like with, with a dash of 60’s TV theme tune and frazzled guitar line. You can almost hear the catsuits. (The Boo Radleys would do similar things in their poppier moments.) He takes the music he loves as a source and then writes his own tribute to it. You can usually hear who he’s thinking of but he’s a good enough songwriter for it not just to be a pastiche.
Ultimately though the Pale Fountains floundered. Their early orchestral stuff just didn’t work when the Human League were number 1. They headed back to Liverpool with an enthusiasm for heroin and a lack of interest in promoting the second album, eventually splitting in 1986 with bassist Chris McCaffrey dying from a brain haemorrhage shortly afterwards.
So that’s’ the Pale Fountains then...fondly remembered, but unfulfilled potential.
Shack’s debut Zilch came out in 88 and is fairly unloved, while the single I Know You Well from 1990 borrows from a vocal from the Byrds Triad (more of that later) and steals a McCartney bass line. It ends up sounding like Rain by The Beatles. This makes it fantastic
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0gEWDm-5gbE&mode=related&search=
Meanwhile Shack were receiving regular visits from Messrs Bad Luck and Underachievement. They recorded their second album Waterpistol in 1991, but the studio burnt down, taking the master tapes with it. A dat copy survived but had been left in producer Chris Allison’s hire car...in the States. By the time it turned up the record company had gone bust. Fortunately though a German company Marina were able to release it…A tardy 4 years later. It’s a terrific album though. A cleverly stitched together tapestry of all the best moves of Love and The Byrds
Hey Mama owes a debt to David Crosby’s song Triad. It’s a tribute to the art of the threesome and was greeted less enthusiastically by the rest of The Byrds. It was booted off The Notorious Byrd Brothers lp in favour of Goffin and King’s song Goin’ Back. Crosby left the band soon after and the myth grew that Crosby was replaced by a horse on the albums sleeve.
And the thing is you know that Shack know the debt to Triad. They know all the stories and they know all their heroes tricks. In later years Shack backed Arthur Lee on live dates in the Uk. There’s probably no better band qualified and they would have known all the songs
The album Waterpistol has a warm, murky feel.to it. Mood Of The Morning is built on little circular, intertwining bass and guitar riffs like So You Wanna Be A Rock ‘n’ Roll Star, but with bongos. It has the line “My baby loves happy mondays, My Baby drinks leftovers in the morning, She’s always singing and yawning, She’s into the mood of the morning”
But of course the band didn’t really exist anymore. Mick and John Head recorded an album as The Strands, financed by a French fan. The Magical World Of The Strands.
By this point it was looking like Head was going to become one of those oft cited rarely sighted figures like Lee Mavers. In a last ditch burst of commercialism Shack regrouped and released HMS Fable on London in 1999. Big tunes big promotion and less dependent on the Byrds and Love.
Opening track Natalie’s Party crashes into the kitchen on a wave of Pete Townsend style scything guitar, pilfers the best bottles and then stumbles into the garden to see if there’s a swimming pool for Keith Moon to park his Rolls Royce in it...or at least somewhere to piss. It’s a great opener and the exuberance of the guitar and vocal is matched by the sweep of the string section. The whole lp is brasher in sound than their previous work.
The backing vocals throughout the album are interesting. What works best is John’s vocal following just behind Mick’s, sounding like it’s straining to keep up. Yes it may be a Beatles trick, but it’s still a good one.
There’s some silly stuff to contend with though. The key line on Lend Some Dough is “I’ve got to get out of the kitchen. Lend some dough, I’ve got a sore back and I’m itching” It’s actually a song about buying smack, but sung as a rousing Oliver style musical. All it needs is a kids chorus line to strike up as they go skipping down the street to meet an Artful Dodger in a sulky Scouse coat. I’m afraid they also use the line “Lend some dough, re me fa so la ti.” Ouch!
The anticipated commercial breakthrough didn’t happen, so Shack followed up the album with another single, Oscar. A song about a man in a wheelchair who wants to move to the Netherlands for state sponsored sex with prostitutes. That wasn’t a hit either.
At least the work rate was picking up though. Here’s Tom With The Weather hurtled into the shops a mere 4 years later. More Beatles Byrds, Love and some Nick Drake.
Byrds Turn To Stone is a wonderful song, wistful, and warmly nostalgic about the two brothers “Learning to play guitar, One for you and one for me. Who’ll be the first to learn. All the tricks of Mr Lee”
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FEman36xAIQ&mode=related&search=
And of course it does sound like the Byrds and Love. But as you may have gathered I don’t have a problem with that. I’ve bought many versions of Love’s staggering album Forever Changes over the years. The only way it could be improved for me would be if it could step out of a bath of custard, wearing a nurses uniform and announce it was ready for a little spanking. Apart from that it’s got everything I could want in an album.
The Shack release schedule was now unstoppable. The Corner of Miles and Gil was released on Noel Gallagher’s label Sour Mash. They describe the title as a tip of the hat to Miles Davis and his arranger Gil Evans. Now a mere year later there’s a greatest hits album Time Machine out complete with full on tour and in store appearances.
Pop music’s easy. You just need great songs, great singing and great playing. And a little bit of time. Which means Shack have got it all.
Saturday, October 06, 2007
Alabama 3
How much you like Alabama 3 depends on how much you like the idea of acid country house music, larger than life stage personas and people who think it would be more fun to sing as if they were from the American South than rather than the London South. So yes I like them a lot.
They deal in the traditional Country concerns of death, God, lust and drinking but spliced with clubby drug tales. On Saturday night live to excess, come Sunday morning you pray and confess. The sacred, profane and cocaine in a Mucky Chemical Romance.
They play sinuous looping stretched out grooves with the cod blues rasp of Rob Spragg AKA Larry Love and the holly roller testifying of Jake Black AKA The Very Reverend Dr. D. Wayne Love.(Is that cod meets God then?)
There's much fun to be had with the alter egos, the crumpled white suits of their stage wear carry the stains of hard living almost as much as their crumpled band faces. They're a band who look as if they've spent a long hard life in front of and behind bars.
On the face of it dressing up and pretending to be something that you're not should actually get in the way of the music. But is it where you walk or the way you walk that matters the most? Alabama 3 carry it off because underpinning, the subtle irony and the blatant piss taking is a deep knowledge of the music it's based on, and pop culture generally.
Trombonist Pascal Wyse who played a gig with them described a quick chat with a hungover Jake Black. "He may look all over the place, but talking to him leaves you feeling like you have never read a book, seen a film or listened to a CD in your life."
Debut album Exile On Coldharbour Lane came out in 97 with the band boasting that "We spent half of our advance from Geffen on various contraband items and with the rest we made an over-produced, brilliant situationist masterpiece called 'Exile on Coldharbour Lane'. Ever since then we've been preaching our Gospel all over the world. We've got into a whole bunch of trouble and met a whole bunch of nice people. We make friends where ever we go"
It's not only the Rolling Stones-saluting title and cover art that betray the band's ability to both dig and dig up the past. There's a cover of John Prine's Speed Of The Sound Of Loneliness that turns it into a twangy boing fest.
Ain't Goin' To Goa sticks the boot into the hippy rave trail and concludes "Cos the righteous truth is, there ain't nothing worse than some fool lying on some Third World beach wearing spandex, psychedelic trousers, smoking damn dope pretending he gettin' consciousness expansion. I want consciousness expansion, I go to my local tabernacle an' I sing with the brothers and sisters "
There's more pun slinging action with La Peste from 2000 with Sad Eyed Lady Of The Low Life which borrows from a Dylan for the title and an unlikely blend of Primal Scream's Loaded and Elton John's Saturday Night's Alright For Fighting for the tune.
In 2001 they did a month long residency at the Camden Underworld supporting themselves in various guises, as a country band with Eileen Rose and BJ Cole and as a gospel act with David McAlmont. Larry Love described it as "This is our chance to show that we know our country, we know our gospel, we know our techno and we know our blues… It's a chance for people to see us for the eclectic motherfuckers that we are.
"We can show the various elements of faith that make up our canon. I love being able to take a bluegrass loop or a rockabilly loop and turn it into a modern, computer-based concept…which is what Moby's had such success with on "Play"…we've been doing for years"
Outlaw came out in 2005 and tries to live up to it's title by having a song called Hello I'm Johnny Cash and another called Have You Seen Bruce Richard Reynolds. The Great Train Robber Reynolds wrote the sleeve notes for the album.
The new album MOR is just released and for the upcoming tour the band's website promise that "Maybe you've done some good things in your life, maybe you've done some bad things. We forgive you. Forgive yourself. Then dress up real sexy and come and party with us sometime. We'll look after you."
They deal in the traditional Country concerns of death, God, lust and drinking but spliced with clubby drug tales. On Saturday night live to excess, come Sunday morning you pray and confess. The sacred, profane and cocaine in a Mucky Chemical Romance.
They play sinuous looping stretched out grooves with the cod blues rasp of Rob Spragg AKA Larry Love and the holly roller testifying of Jake Black AKA The Very Reverend Dr. D. Wayne Love.(Is that cod meets God then?)
There's much fun to be had with the alter egos, the crumpled white suits of their stage wear carry the stains of hard living almost as much as their crumpled band faces. They're a band who look as if they've spent a long hard life in front of and behind bars.
On the face of it dressing up and pretending to be something that you're not should actually get in the way of the music. But is it where you walk or the way you walk that matters the most? Alabama 3 carry it off because underpinning, the subtle irony and the blatant piss taking is a deep knowledge of the music it's based on, and pop culture generally.
Trombonist Pascal Wyse who played a gig with them described a quick chat with a hungover Jake Black. "He may look all over the place, but talking to him leaves you feeling like you have never read a book, seen a film or listened to a CD in your life."
Debut album Exile On Coldharbour Lane came out in 97 with the band boasting that "We spent half of our advance from Geffen on various contraband items and with the rest we made an over-produced, brilliant situationist masterpiece called 'Exile on Coldharbour Lane'. Ever since then we've been preaching our Gospel all over the world. We've got into a whole bunch of trouble and met a whole bunch of nice people. We make friends where ever we go"
It's not only the Rolling Stones-saluting title and cover art that betray the band's ability to both dig and dig up the past. There's a cover of John Prine's Speed Of The Sound Of Loneliness that turns it into a twangy boing fest.
Ain't Goin' To Goa sticks the boot into the hippy rave trail and concludes "Cos the righteous truth is, there ain't nothing worse than some fool lying on some Third World beach wearing spandex, psychedelic trousers, smoking damn dope pretending he gettin' consciousness expansion. I want consciousness expansion, I go to my local tabernacle an' I sing with the brothers and sisters "
There's more pun slinging action with La Peste from 2000 with Sad Eyed Lady Of The Low Life which borrows from a Dylan for the title and an unlikely blend of Primal Scream's Loaded and Elton John's Saturday Night's Alright For Fighting for the tune.
In 2001 they did a month long residency at the Camden Underworld supporting themselves in various guises, as a country band with Eileen Rose and BJ Cole and as a gospel act with David McAlmont. Larry Love described it as "This is our chance to show that we know our country, we know our gospel, we know our techno and we know our blues… It's a chance for people to see us for the eclectic motherfuckers that we are.
"We can show the various elements of faith that make up our canon. I love being able to take a bluegrass loop or a rockabilly loop and turn it into a modern, computer-based concept…which is what Moby's had such success with on "Play"…we've been doing for years"
Outlaw came out in 2005 and tries to live up to it's title by having a song called Hello I'm Johnny Cash and another called Have You Seen Bruce Richard Reynolds. The Great Train Robber Reynolds wrote the sleeve notes for the album.
The new album MOR is just released and for the upcoming tour the band's website promise that "Maybe you've done some good things in your life, maybe you've done some bad things. We forgive you. Forgive yourself. Then dress up real sexy and come and party with us sometime. We'll look after you."
Maps
Their debut album We Can Create was hotly fancied for the Mercury prize, but ultimately lost out to Klaxons. On a night out, the nu rave Klaxons songs would be all jabbing glow sticks in your ribs and telling you to wake up. The Maps sound is a much more comfortable, sonic duvet.
It doesn't just tickle your ear, it envelopes you in gorgeousness, gets you drunk and tells you it loves you.
Maps aren't really a band. It's Northampton bedroom electro fiddler James Chapman. Unusually for an electronic project the album was written on a 16 track machine at home rather than using a computer. He'd spent years tinkering with the songs and arrangements without playing them to friends let alone playing them live.
Once the world became interested though he was lured out of the bedroom and assembled a band to tour with.
As is often the case the record he thinks he's making in his head isn't the one that actually comes out. He describes himself as a massive fan of Boards Of Canada and the back catalogue of the Warp label, but by sidestepping the computer it sounds like he's used analogue methods to try and make an electronic album.
So what actually emerges recalls the electropop side of Spiritualised and the swooning breathlessness of Loveless era My Bloody Valentine. There's also the grandeur of Doves or New Order at their most ceremonial and the occasional whiff of Moby. The hazy, fragile vocals are mixed low, but the overall feeling is of stateliness. These are songs carried in slow dignified procession...by elves.
The songs do all follow the same format though. Similar mid paced tempos, and as each new instrumental layer is added, you're never surprised by the actual sound or where it sits. So it's not revolutionary but it does sound warm, welcoming and just absolutely "right". Each song is cut from the same cloth, but you do end up with a wardrobe of good suits....And so easy to wear!
There's been a frugal approach to the lyrics to. The complete lyrics to Back And Forth are "The Sounds. They separated. Back and forth to you." More of a cryptic crossword clue than a lyric.
When You Leave is also on the shorter side of brief. "When you leave. I ain't coming. What you have comes to nothing"
He's not only a man of few words. He's often a man of the same few words. The line "We can create I say" from opening track So High So Low reappears on Liquid Sugar as "Now we can create".
"Need help to cut on through" from To The Sky resurfaces as "You can try to cut it down" on Lost My Soul. In his defence I'm sure Chapman would be the first to argue that the lyrics are just another layer in themselves and that even the vocals are there to suggest a feeling rather than being a burning statement that just has to get out or the singer will combust.
A sentiment eloquently summed up by James Brown in Hot Pants Road.
The album was co-produced by Valgeir Sigurdsson and mixed by Ken Thomas who have also worked with Bjork and Sigur Ros respectively. So no strangers to the strange then.
So Low So High contains a sample from, Theme From A Teenage Opera by Mark Wirtz. This was the was the b side to Keith West's frankly bonkers 60's single Grocer Jack.
So Low So High follows the "quiet LOUD quiet" formula of the Pixies, but with treated brass fanfares, while You Don't Know Her Name has a Pixies type bass line.
The majestic Elouise approaches the "quiet LOUD quiet" trick from a different angle, using discordant throbbing synths for the LOUD part. When they stop the song itself just snaps into focus with the equivalent of the quiet part. It's the sound itself that's doing the trick rather than the volume. It's a really good effect and the song's great too!
The album does sound so overwhelmingly lovely that dwelling on any negative or critical feelings I have about it just make me feel a bit ungrateful. Like the swinish brute from a romantic tale who just doesn't appreciate the beauty and charms of the silky tressed heroine.
But here's the thing..
..I think it's going to end up as dinner party music, on adverts and voiceover music. I think we'll all feel worse about Maps because of it. Which is a shame, and a bit unfair.
It doesn't just tickle your ear, it envelopes you in gorgeousness, gets you drunk and tells you it loves you.
Maps aren't really a band. It's Northampton bedroom electro fiddler James Chapman. Unusually for an electronic project the album was written on a 16 track machine at home rather than using a computer. He'd spent years tinkering with the songs and arrangements without playing them to friends let alone playing them live.
Once the world became interested though he was lured out of the bedroom and assembled a band to tour with.
As is often the case the record he thinks he's making in his head isn't the one that actually comes out. He describes himself as a massive fan of Boards Of Canada and the back catalogue of the Warp label, but by sidestepping the computer it sounds like he's used analogue methods to try and make an electronic album.
So what actually emerges recalls the electropop side of Spiritualised and the swooning breathlessness of Loveless era My Bloody Valentine. There's also the grandeur of Doves or New Order at their most ceremonial and the occasional whiff of Moby. The hazy, fragile vocals are mixed low, but the overall feeling is of stateliness. These are songs carried in slow dignified procession...by elves.
The songs do all follow the same format though. Similar mid paced tempos, and as each new instrumental layer is added, you're never surprised by the actual sound or where it sits. So it's not revolutionary but it does sound warm, welcoming and just absolutely "right". Each song is cut from the same cloth, but you do end up with a wardrobe of good suits....And so easy to wear!
There's been a frugal approach to the lyrics to. The complete lyrics to Back And Forth are "The Sounds. They separated. Back and forth to you." More of a cryptic crossword clue than a lyric.
When You Leave is also on the shorter side of brief. "When you leave. I ain't coming. What you have comes to nothing"
He's not only a man of few words. He's often a man of the same few words. The line "We can create I say" from opening track So High So Low reappears on Liquid Sugar as "Now we can create".
"Need help to cut on through" from To The Sky resurfaces as "You can try to cut it down" on Lost My Soul. In his defence I'm sure Chapman would be the first to argue that the lyrics are just another layer in themselves and that even the vocals are there to suggest a feeling rather than being a burning statement that just has to get out or the singer will combust.
A sentiment eloquently summed up by James Brown in Hot Pants Road.
The album was co-produced by Valgeir Sigurdsson and mixed by Ken Thomas who have also worked with Bjork and Sigur Ros respectively. So no strangers to the strange then.
So Low So High contains a sample from, Theme From A Teenage Opera by Mark Wirtz. This was the was the b side to Keith West's frankly bonkers 60's single Grocer Jack.
So Low So High follows the "quiet LOUD quiet" formula of the Pixies, but with treated brass fanfares, while You Don't Know Her Name has a Pixies type bass line.
The majestic Elouise approaches the "quiet LOUD quiet" trick from a different angle, using discordant throbbing synths for the LOUD part. When they stop the song itself just snaps into focus with the equivalent of the quiet part. It's the sound itself that's doing the trick rather than the volume. It's a really good effect and the song's great too!
The album does sound so overwhelmingly lovely that dwelling on any negative or critical feelings I have about it just make me feel a bit ungrateful. Like the swinish brute from a romantic tale who just doesn't appreciate the beauty and charms of the silky tressed heroine.
But here's the thing..
..I think it's going to end up as dinner party music, on adverts and voiceover music. I think we'll all feel worse about Maps because of it. Which is a shame, and a bit unfair.
Saturday, September 01, 2007
Undertones
Nostalgia just keeps getting better and better.
With the Punk Rock nostalgia circuit you can see bands that you may not have seen at the time and bands who've spent the intervening years learning how to play.
You can see bands who've realised that maybe that 3rd album that they insisted on playing in it's excruciating entirety the last time you saw them was in actual fact, a waste of studio time, gig time and your time. So this time round they'll just play the good stuff.
It does get complicated though because there are bands you don't want to see because they were ropey old toss 30 years ago and now they're just ageing ropey old toss. Then there are bands who you loved so much that you don't want to run the risk of seeing them again and having the memory spoilt. Decisions decisions.
The Undertones were my favourite band for years, so any reunion runs the risk of crushing disappointment. It could be like finding your first love has had a sex change and your place of birth is marked by a skip rather than a commemorative plaque.
So what about the Undertones? On the face of it doesn't sound promising, as they've reformed without their distinctive, original singer, Feargal Sharkey. They split in ‘83, but have been playing sporadically since 1999, with new singer Paul McLoone.
His vocals have a bit of the Sharkey quavery quality and the rest of the band are still belting out punchy pop punk as if their lives depended on it.... or at least because they're having so much fun that they don't want to stop. And that's the key to it really.
Many people go to a reunion gig as a celebration of the band, or of a period of their own lives. Inevitably it's the bands earliest songs that matter most to the audience and it's the bands attitude to the knowledge that in the public eye (even if not in their own heads) they've done their best work that makes the difference.
If a band still look like they've got a genuine excitement about playing live, then it's not just nostalgia. …It's a great gig with songs you like.
I saw them at the 3 years ago at the Academy. They were excellent and I probably enjoyed the gig more than any of the times I'd seen them first time round. (Review here)
Their debut single "Teenage Kicks" was such a pivotal pop moment and their first 2 albums delivered more unstoppable Pop thrills, Ramones and romance.
With "Positive Touch" and the final album "Sin Of Pride" they attempted to broaden their sound and musical influences...while actually leading to a narrower audience and increasing tensions between the rest of the band and Sharkey. They always delivered as a live band though. And still do.
"Get What You Need" was released in 2003 and is a zesty romp through a bunch of songs that have some of the same fizz and crackle of the first 2 albums. There are demos for material for the forthcoming album Dig Yourself Deep at http://www.myspace.com/theundertonesmyspace
The live show is based round all the songs you want to hear, ie the singles, the first 2 albums and a smattering of songs from the new one that sound like it could have been on the old one. Expect joyous enthusiasm from both band and audience.
With the Punk Rock nostalgia circuit you can see bands that you may not have seen at the time and bands who've spent the intervening years learning how to play.
You can see bands who've realised that maybe that 3rd album that they insisted on playing in it's excruciating entirety the last time you saw them was in actual fact, a waste of studio time, gig time and your time. So this time round they'll just play the good stuff.
It does get complicated though because there are bands you don't want to see because they were ropey old toss 30 years ago and now they're just ageing ropey old toss. Then there are bands who you loved so much that you don't want to run the risk of seeing them again and having the memory spoilt. Decisions decisions.
The Undertones were my favourite band for years, so any reunion runs the risk of crushing disappointment. It could be like finding your first love has had a sex change and your place of birth is marked by a skip rather than a commemorative plaque.
So what about the Undertones? On the face of it doesn't sound promising, as they've reformed without their distinctive, original singer, Feargal Sharkey. They split in ‘83, but have been playing sporadically since 1999, with new singer Paul McLoone.
His vocals have a bit of the Sharkey quavery quality and the rest of the band are still belting out punchy pop punk as if their lives depended on it.... or at least because they're having so much fun that they don't want to stop. And that's the key to it really.
Many people go to a reunion gig as a celebration of the band, or of a period of their own lives. Inevitably it's the bands earliest songs that matter most to the audience and it's the bands attitude to the knowledge that in the public eye (even if not in their own heads) they've done their best work that makes the difference.
If a band still look like they've got a genuine excitement about playing live, then it's not just nostalgia. …It's a great gig with songs you like.
I saw them at the 3 years ago at the Academy. They were excellent and I probably enjoyed the gig more than any of the times I'd seen them first time round. (Review here)
Their debut single "Teenage Kicks" was such a pivotal pop moment and their first 2 albums delivered more unstoppable Pop thrills, Ramones and romance.
With "Positive Touch" and the final album "Sin Of Pride" they attempted to broaden their sound and musical influences...while actually leading to a narrower audience and increasing tensions between the rest of the band and Sharkey. They always delivered as a live band though. And still do.
"Get What You Need" was released in 2003 and is a zesty romp through a bunch of songs that have some of the same fizz and crackle of the first 2 albums. There are demos for material for the forthcoming album Dig Yourself Deep at http://www.myspace.com/theundertonesmyspace
The live show is based round all the songs you want to hear, ie the singles, the first 2 albums and a smattering of songs from the new one that sound like it could have been on the old one. Expect joyous enthusiasm from both band and audience.
Polyphonic Spree
I've always liked big bands and I've never feared the gimmick. Polyphonic Spree score on all counts.
They've recently slimmed down to a compact 24 members (from a stage busting 28) including orchestra and choir. They had tap dancers on stage at their recent Lollaplooza appearance in Chicago.
They've got husband and wife bandleaders in Tim DeLaughter and Julie Doyle (although statistically speaking, with all those people involved, you're bound to find you are married to at least one of them).
More gimmicks? Oooh yes please. How about robes?
And then just in case the robes were overshadowing the band they've replaced them....with tunics. Is this a band or a cult? Would Sir care for another tiny piece of gimmick? Ok cut me a large slice.
How about 3 albums worth of bouncily scary "Happy". That's arm waving, stranger hugging, life affirming. A laughing Labrador of positivity and happiness. None of your bedsit Indie gloom in the Spree camp.
Tim DeLaughter formed the band in 2000 as a positive response to the breakup of his former band Tripping Daisy and death of his bandmate Wes Berggren.
There are other big bands around of course. I'm From Barcelona have the numbers, Arcade Fire have that same weird cult feel and Broken Social Scene have that collective arrangement, dipping in and out of a pool of musicians.
They call themselves a choral symphonic Pop band but in terms of the sound, it's a bonkers Flaming Lips or Mercury Rev, cooked up with ELO, musicals like Godspell or Hair and The Beatles brass fanfares from the songs like Sgt Peppers Lonely Hearts Club Band (which funnily enough Spree have covered)....and then the whole rich pudding is over-egged some more.
Bring on the choirs, wheel on the harp and don't be frugal with the flugal horn.
The first album The Beginning Stages came out in 2002, while the lusher sounding Together We Are Heavy was released in 2004. They've even managed to add a gimmick to the song titles.
The first track on the first album is called Section 1 (Have a Day/Celebratory) continuing up to it's final track Section 10 (A Long day). While the first track on the second album is Section 11 (A long day Continues). The last track on the second album is Section 20 (Together We're Heavy) while the first track on the third album is polyphonic Section 21 (Together We're Heavy).
David Bowie was an early fan, and put them on at the Meltdown festival he compiled in 2002.
The Bowie connection becomes deeper with the appearance of Bowie's legendary pianist (careful how you read that!) on The Spree's new album The Fragile Army.
Mike Garson played the certifiable piano solo on the title track of Bowie's 70's classic Aladdin Sane, with it's a jaw dropping pop moment, where Glam Rock met Jazz. It's undoubtedly the strangest piano part on a Pop record....and it's the kind of thing that causes non Jazz fans to wonder. "Aren't they just making it up as they go along?"
On the video for current single Running Away the band are performing in front of a banner that reads "Hope" and the video itself is composed of thousands of still photos rather than moving video image.
It's classic Polyphonic Spree, joyous, with dippy lyrics. "I'm projecting and reflecting desire. For you to come into my life."
With it's pop rush and the emphasis of the opening syllable, it reminds me of Blondie's Dreamin' and it's "When I met you in the restaurant" line.
But obviously with extra choral swing, harps, cellos, a rousing gear change up for the final straight (this band only do up!) and a breakdown at the end where you could almost be getting ready to do The Timewarp.
Oh yes Musicals are never far away from The Spree.
The opening to Guaranteed Nightlife does sound like it should have come straight from a musical, you can almost hear the sound of hands being raised to the skies to set free the lyrics "Remember the night you said you had a vision of all of these wonderful feelings going by".
Then it takes an alarming turn as the song picks up and all I can think of is Patsy Gallant's 1977 hit New York to LA. I say it's alarming....but I do find myself strangely drawn back to Guaranteed Nightlife.
Get Up And Go has a catchy stop start drum pattern and I was especially pleased to see that they couldn't resist accompanying the line "We're marching to the left and right" with the sound of marching feet. The obvious can be good and the obvious can be fun!
One of the key things to the sound of both Arcade Fire and The Polyphonic Spree is the drums. The bands may approach the other instruments differently but for both, bands the drums are more important for driving the music forward than may at first appear.
And it is surprising given that the drums are just one instrument in many. Especially as both bands have so much going on in terms of sounds and layering...or just sheer numbers of people involved.
With the Arcade Fire the drums and vocals are shifting round the verses and choruses. While the other instruments are playing drones, the drums keep it moving. With the Polyphonic Spree, the vocals and other instruments are definitely providing melody but the drums are still really motoring.
The best track on the album though is The Championship. It's got bells and an opening "Wooh!" which as might as well say "C'mon kids lets do the show right here". Well if it was a Musical it would do.....but being the positively Polyphonic Spree, the key line is actually "If we try, somehow we will keep it alive".
Now this part of the song and it's swirling yet stately backing inhabits that strange and unexplored world somewhere between Prince and The Waterboys. I could always hear echoes of the pervy purple imp's When Doves Cry in the overblown Whole of the Moon.
The song really takes off with more piano hammering, a coronation's worth of trumpet fanfares and a low flying harp. And plenty of singing too!
To complete the Bowie links it actually sounds like Brian Eno circa Taking Tiger Mountain By Strategy. Which is not just a good thing, it's one of the best things!
Just how many of the band are going to fit in the Glee Club though?
They've recently slimmed down to a compact 24 members (from a stage busting 28) including orchestra and choir. They had tap dancers on stage at their recent Lollaplooza appearance in Chicago.
They've got husband and wife bandleaders in Tim DeLaughter and Julie Doyle (although statistically speaking, with all those people involved, you're bound to find you are married to at least one of them).
More gimmicks? Oooh yes please. How about robes?
And then just in case the robes were overshadowing the band they've replaced them....with tunics. Is this a band or a cult? Would Sir care for another tiny piece of gimmick? Ok cut me a large slice.
How about 3 albums worth of bouncily scary "Happy". That's arm waving, stranger hugging, life affirming. A laughing Labrador of positivity and happiness. None of your bedsit Indie gloom in the Spree camp.
Tim DeLaughter formed the band in 2000 as a positive response to the breakup of his former band Tripping Daisy and death of his bandmate Wes Berggren.
There are other big bands around of course. I'm From Barcelona have the numbers, Arcade Fire have that same weird cult feel and Broken Social Scene have that collective arrangement, dipping in and out of a pool of musicians.
They call themselves a choral symphonic Pop band but in terms of the sound, it's a bonkers Flaming Lips or Mercury Rev, cooked up with ELO, musicals like Godspell or Hair and The Beatles brass fanfares from the songs like Sgt Peppers Lonely Hearts Club Band (which funnily enough Spree have covered)....and then the whole rich pudding is over-egged some more.
Bring on the choirs, wheel on the harp and don't be frugal with the flugal horn.
The first album The Beginning Stages came out in 2002, while the lusher sounding Together We Are Heavy was released in 2004. They've even managed to add a gimmick to the song titles.
The first track on the first album is called Section 1 (Have a Day/Celebratory) continuing up to it's final track Section 10 (A Long day). While the first track on the second album is Section 11 (A long day Continues). The last track on the second album is Section 20 (Together We're Heavy) while the first track on the third album is polyphonic Section 21 (Together We're Heavy).
David Bowie was an early fan, and put them on at the Meltdown festival he compiled in 2002.
The Bowie connection becomes deeper with the appearance of Bowie's legendary pianist (careful how you read that!) on The Spree's new album The Fragile Army.
Mike Garson played the certifiable piano solo on the title track of Bowie's 70's classic Aladdin Sane, with it's a jaw dropping pop moment, where Glam Rock met Jazz. It's undoubtedly the strangest piano part on a Pop record....and it's the kind of thing that causes non Jazz fans to wonder. "Aren't they just making it up as they go along?"
On the video for current single Running Away the band are performing in front of a banner that reads "Hope" and the video itself is composed of thousands of still photos rather than moving video image.
It's classic Polyphonic Spree, joyous, with dippy lyrics. "I'm projecting and reflecting desire. For you to come into my life."
With it's pop rush and the emphasis of the opening syllable, it reminds me of Blondie's Dreamin' and it's "When I met you in the restaurant" line.
But obviously with extra choral swing, harps, cellos, a rousing gear change up for the final straight (this band only do up!) and a breakdown at the end where you could almost be getting ready to do The Timewarp.
Oh yes Musicals are never far away from The Spree.
The opening to Guaranteed Nightlife does sound like it should have come straight from a musical, you can almost hear the sound of hands being raised to the skies to set free the lyrics "Remember the night you said you had a vision of all of these wonderful feelings going by".
Then it takes an alarming turn as the song picks up and all I can think of is Patsy Gallant's 1977 hit New York to LA. I say it's alarming....but I do find myself strangely drawn back to Guaranteed Nightlife.
Get Up And Go has a catchy stop start drum pattern and I was especially pleased to see that they couldn't resist accompanying the line "We're marching to the left and right" with the sound of marching feet. The obvious can be good and the obvious can be fun!
One of the key things to the sound of both Arcade Fire and The Polyphonic Spree is the drums. The bands may approach the other instruments differently but for both, bands the drums are more important for driving the music forward than may at first appear.
And it is surprising given that the drums are just one instrument in many. Especially as both bands have so much going on in terms of sounds and layering...or just sheer numbers of people involved.
With the Arcade Fire the drums and vocals are shifting round the verses and choruses. While the other instruments are playing drones, the drums keep it moving. With the Polyphonic Spree, the vocals and other instruments are definitely providing melody but the drums are still really motoring.
The best track on the album though is The Championship. It's got bells and an opening "Wooh!" which as might as well say "C'mon kids lets do the show right here". Well if it was a Musical it would do.....but being the positively Polyphonic Spree, the key line is actually "If we try, somehow we will keep it alive".
Now this part of the song and it's swirling yet stately backing inhabits that strange and unexplored world somewhere between Prince and The Waterboys. I could always hear echoes of the pervy purple imp's When Doves Cry in the overblown Whole of the Moon.
The song really takes off with more piano hammering, a coronation's worth of trumpet fanfares and a low flying harp. And plenty of singing too!
To complete the Bowie links it actually sounds like Brian Eno circa Taking Tiger Mountain By Strategy. Which is not just a good thing, it's one of the best things!
Just how many of the band are going to fit in the Glee Club though?
Wilco
After an evening of fine dining, post cheeseboard but pre brandy and cigars the talk often turns to things Alt Country and Americana.The name of Wilco will come up. They formed from the ashes of Uncle Tupelo who pretty much invented the whole Alt Country genre by taking as much from the Minutemen as they did from Hank Williams.
Over the course of six very different albums frontman Jeff Tweedy has navigated a course through Country Rock and electronics, shed band members with the regularity (if not the sheer numbers) of The Fall and after a classic David and Goliath tussle with their record company become one of the first established bands to actively embrace the internet.
They've recorded 2 albums of Woody Guthrie songs with Billy Bragg released as Mermaid Avenue" Vols 1 and 2.
The current line up have come closer than anyone else I can think of to capturing that searing, unflashy virtuoso guitar style of Tom Verlaine and Television. It's mixed in with Beatles and Country moves though, and some really unflustered, confident playing.
The definitive Wilco album was always Yankee Hotel Foxtrot" from 2002.
The first few seconds of opening track I Am Trying To Break Your Heart" gives a clue to what they're trying to do.
It actually sounds like a roomful of electronics has just been switched on.The hums and bleeps circle round each other as the drums and keyboards shuffle in before snapping into focus with the opening line "I'm an American aquarium drinker. I assassin down the avenue."I'm still baffled after 7 minutes of it, but the ghost of Eels is definitely present.
It's in the half spoken /sung delivery and the dislocation in Tweedy's voice.
No confusion with next track Kamera" though.It's just a terrific, melodic pop song that could work in any style. You could speed it up and fuzzify it for Weezer/Blink 182 powerpop, play it Country style or like Simon and Garfunkel.How clever is that!
And the reason that's possible is that it started off as really good song.Which is also a clever thing to be able to do.
I like the lyric "Phone my family.Tell them I'm lost on the sidewalk. No it's not Ok."Now you can look for genius in different places (personally I find it easier to do my research in pop music than quantum physics) but I do really like the way Tweedy squeezes the line "No it's not Ok" into the melody and makes the phrase itself sound like pop genius.
What Wilco did with Yankee Hotel Foxtrot" was to really play with the sounds.One minute the drums sound natural and untreated, the next there's a fuzzy edge to them, guitar lines merge into keyboards.
It's tricksy but for the most part it's not getting in the way of the songs themselves.
Heavy Metal Drummer" has the great opening line "I sincerely miss those heavy metal bands we used to see on the landing in the sun....I miss the innocence I've known, playing Kiss covers beautiful and stoned."
It's another great mixture of carefully crafted pop, warm and woody, mixed with the artificial.Shuffling drums and the Georgio Moroder chug. The opening line "I sincerely wish" is either going to entrance or infuriate you. Like Morrissey or Marmite.
Radio Cure" has the desolate feel of the 3rd big Star album, while War On War" is ghostly synth pop.
Pot Kettle Black" is the Country Pop relative of The Cure's Inbetween Days", with electric piano, turning into acoustic guitar strummer time before the cheap cheese synthesiser ending that sounds a bit like Telstar. Which sells it to me!
The killer track though is I'm The Man Who Loves You".
They manage to squeeze so many different influences and changes into the song, without actually detracting from the song itself. From a sliding, guitar intro, it takes in Beatles/Scritti Politti melody, a fuzzy Mr Soul guitar mutates into brass, throws in a funk chord sequence, some "Whoo Whoo" backing vocals and then ends it with a Tom Verlaine guitar pile up.
And of course the song title itself sounds like Pop songs should.Broken hearted and braggadocios.There's a live version at
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SHnEMdXN_FU&mode=related&search =
Yankee Hotel Foxtrot" may be revered now, but at the time their label Reprise had no confidence in it.As part of the shake out when Time and Warners merged, Wilco left the label and instead started streaming the album from their own website until they signed to Nonesuch.....which is ironically a Warners subsidiary.
The process of making the album was legendarily fraught and saw the departure of multi instrumentalist Jay Bennett. The albums follow up A Ghost Is Born" saw the departure of Leroy Bach and Tweedy going into rehab for painkiller addiction.
With Sky Blue Sky" released earlier this year (but streamed though the band's site before it's official release) the emphasis is squarely on the songs rather than the production values.
You Are My Face" has hints of Leonard Cohen or Paul Simon type phrasing.The vocals on Side With Seeds" have some of that Steely Dan smooth yelp quality, while What Light" is Dylanesque.
The key track though is "Impossible Germany".
Even though Tweedy has spoken in recent interviews about feeling that this time round he wanted to make the lyrics more direct, he has still managed to use the phrase "Impossible Germany Unlikely Japan".
It's a beautiful song though, full of longing and very long.The band stretch out quite literally, utilising lots of Television moves and then moving onto the Thin Lizzy trick of both guitars playing the same line.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=97IT0-EDTtw
Wilco mix the usual musical influences with the experimental, abstract lyrics with the traditional Country concerns of drinking and gambling, but it's the incendiary guitar playing that's really got my interest at the moment. Live, I think it'll be a treat.
Over the course of six very different albums frontman Jeff Tweedy has navigated a course through Country Rock and electronics, shed band members with the regularity (if not the sheer numbers) of The Fall and after a classic David and Goliath tussle with their record company become one of the first established bands to actively embrace the internet.
They've recorded 2 albums of Woody Guthrie songs with Billy Bragg released as Mermaid Avenue" Vols 1 and 2.
The current line up have come closer than anyone else I can think of to capturing that searing, unflashy virtuoso guitar style of Tom Verlaine and Television. It's mixed in with Beatles and Country moves though, and some really unflustered, confident playing.
The definitive Wilco album was always Yankee Hotel Foxtrot" from 2002.
The first few seconds of opening track I Am Trying To Break Your Heart" gives a clue to what they're trying to do.
It actually sounds like a roomful of electronics has just been switched on.The hums and bleeps circle round each other as the drums and keyboards shuffle in before snapping into focus with the opening line "I'm an American aquarium drinker. I assassin down the avenue."I'm still baffled after 7 minutes of it, but the ghost of Eels is definitely present.
It's in the half spoken /sung delivery and the dislocation in Tweedy's voice.
No confusion with next track Kamera" though.It's just a terrific, melodic pop song that could work in any style. You could speed it up and fuzzify it for Weezer/Blink 182 powerpop, play it Country style or like Simon and Garfunkel.How clever is that!
And the reason that's possible is that it started off as really good song.Which is also a clever thing to be able to do.
I like the lyric "Phone my family.Tell them I'm lost on the sidewalk. No it's not Ok."Now you can look for genius in different places (personally I find it easier to do my research in pop music than quantum physics) but I do really like the way Tweedy squeezes the line "No it's not Ok" into the melody and makes the phrase itself sound like pop genius.
What Wilco did with Yankee Hotel Foxtrot" was to really play with the sounds.One minute the drums sound natural and untreated, the next there's a fuzzy edge to them, guitar lines merge into keyboards.
It's tricksy but for the most part it's not getting in the way of the songs themselves.
Heavy Metal Drummer" has the great opening line "I sincerely miss those heavy metal bands we used to see on the landing in the sun....I miss the innocence I've known, playing Kiss covers beautiful and stoned."
It's another great mixture of carefully crafted pop, warm and woody, mixed with the artificial.Shuffling drums and the Georgio Moroder chug. The opening line "I sincerely wish" is either going to entrance or infuriate you. Like Morrissey or Marmite.
Radio Cure" has the desolate feel of the 3rd big Star album, while War On War" is ghostly synth pop.
Pot Kettle Black" is the Country Pop relative of The Cure's Inbetween Days", with electric piano, turning into acoustic guitar strummer time before the cheap cheese synthesiser ending that sounds a bit like Telstar. Which sells it to me!
The killer track though is I'm The Man Who Loves You".
They manage to squeeze so many different influences and changes into the song, without actually detracting from the song itself. From a sliding, guitar intro, it takes in Beatles/Scritti Politti melody, a fuzzy Mr Soul guitar mutates into brass, throws in a funk chord sequence, some "Whoo Whoo" backing vocals and then ends it with a Tom Verlaine guitar pile up.
And of course the song title itself sounds like Pop songs should.Broken hearted and braggadocios.There's a live version at
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SHnEMdXN_FU&mode=related&search =
Yankee Hotel Foxtrot" may be revered now, but at the time their label Reprise had no confidence in it.As part of the shake out when Time and Warners merged, Wilco left the label and instead started streaming the album from their own website until they signed to Nonesuch.....which is ironically a Warners subsidiary.
The process of making the album was legendarily fraught and saw the departure of multi instrumentalist Jay Bennett. The albums follow up A Ghost Is Born" saw the departure of Leroy Bach and Tweedy going into rehab for painkiller addiction.
With Sky Blue Sky" released earlier this year (but streamed though the band's site before it's official release) the emphasis is squarely on the songs rather than the production values.
You Are My Face" has hints of Leonard Cohen or Paul Simon type phrasing.The vocals on Side With Seeds" have some of that Steely Dan smooth yelp quality, while What Light" is Dylanesque.
The key track though is "Impossible Germany".
Even though Tweedy has spoken in recent interviews about feeling that this time round he wanted to make the lyrics more direct, he has still managed to use the phrase "Impossible Germany Unlikely Japan".
It's a beautiful song though, full of longing and very long.The band stretch out quite literally, utilising lots of Television moves and then moving onto the Thin Lizzy trick of both guitars playing the same line.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=97IT0-EDTtw
Wilco mix the usual musical influences with the experimental, abstract lyrics with the traditional Country concerns of drinking and gambling, but it's the incendiary guitar playing that's really got my interest at the moment. Live, I think it'll be a treat.
Monday, August 06, 2007
Broken Family Band
Any one for "14 tracks of spite, bitterness and empty-hearted loathing"? That’s how The Broken Family band describe their new album "Hello Love."
Fortunately there’s a lot more to the band and their music than their tongue in cheek critique implies.
What you get is a band from Cambridge using Alt Country and Folk tricks mixed with American guitar bands and clever lyrics that understand the rules of Pop. They’re working in different fields but, like The Beta Band, you also get a sense that the unexpected is just around the corner.
They’ve also managed to do this while still holding down day jobs, working tours around annual leave. In a really entertaining piece in the Guardian recently singer Steven Adams made an excellent case for it.
He’d played in struggling bands for years, spending the days watching TV in his pants, before concluding "It's pretty easy to be in a band and have a job.
"You go to work in the daytime and you play shows in the evenings and on weekends. If we all agreed to take a pay cut (from our existing salaries) and to "do" the Broken Family Band full time for a year, we would require a one-off tax-free payment of £250,000. That's twenty-five grand each, per year, for two years (one year to "do" the band, one year to sit on our arses moaning about how we could have made it, and £50,000 for the pot). Anyone want to offer that? We have assumed not, so doing it this way makes sense to us. Two of our number have mortgages, one has a family to support, and one has an expensive trainer habit. So we've kept our jobs"
Giving up the day job or signing off is one of the foundations of the Rock n Roll world but think of the possibilities if you had to keep your old job, even after you’d cracked it as Rock ‘n’ Roll fabulous.
There’s the very real risk of being taught by Sting, being sold an ice cream by The Stranglers Jet Black or getting your hair cut by Kevin Rowland or Charlie Harper. Keanu Reeves would have to struggle on as a struggling actor.
And what about Bez? Forever cursed to wander the twilight between the worlds of work and Rock n Roll as one of the maraca shaking Undead.
Broken Family Band's current album "Hello Love" opens with "Leaps". It’s a saucy coupling of The Violent Femmes and Magic Numbers. It could be the most blatant celebration of afternoon delight since....Afternoon Delight.
"I love the way that it hides and it leaps out at you and it leaps out at me in the afternoon". The song fades out on a fuzz of discordant guitar, just before falling asleep with the afternoons intended tasks still undone.
The single "Love Your Man Love Your Woman" manages to get that deep ringing sound, like the bom bom bom rhythm of Mr Blue Sky, with the guitar, bass and drums hammering out the same note.
It’s a Grinderman type bastard blues howl and as Steve Adams sings "You need trees and flowers and someone to hold you when you want to be held" his vocals make the change, but the relentless (Nick) Caveman hammering behind him doesn’t follow the progression.
Eventually they do and use up those final 2 chords. Oooh, but they make you wait. It’s primitive and clever and there’s a scouring guitar solo that could contribute to coastal erosion.
Steven Adams vocals have a reedy Gram Parsons twang (obviously that’s a good thing) on "So Many Lovers" while on "Don’t Change Your Mind" he offers practical advice "You can’t always sleep naked knowing you have to run for the bathroom."
Well you’ve either got to wear PJ’s or else it’s cup and run. Might be one for the message boards.
My favourite track though is the wistful and jauntily sour "Give And Take" - "I’m sure she’s found a person/ to give her some attention/ and if I ever do meet him/there are things that I should mention/She will take your heart and crush it/and maybe you two should discuss it".
There’s an odd rhythm to the words but he fits the words round the melody so they sound absolutely right. With the female backing vocals from Jen Maro and the general guitar thrummery it feels like Leonard Cohen’s "The Partisan" meets Bill Callahan. It ends with a really effective reverbed trumpet part.
Closing track "Seven Sisters" goes from Will Oldham fragile hesitancy to a punkathon ending complete with that Johnny Greenwood (from Radiohead) style trick of squeezing needling, mosquito sounds from his guitar and Adams repeated distorted "Hello Love" bellowed refrain.
For a band whose original intention was to play a few gigs at their local and make an album they’re managed to squeeze out four full length albums and a 2 mini albums since 2002 including the impeccably titled "The King Will Build A Disco."
Their website is a treat www.brokenfamilyband.com because it actually captures something of the spirit of the band, sarky and funny and with an awareness of how they fit in (or don’t).
Triumphant gigs are described as "Smashed it" and I’m sorry to have missed two of their gigs in 2002.
"We were inappropriate but ultimately victorious at St. Luke's Primary School PTA Barbeque. It was great. Brian Penny's 59th birthday party was excellent, especially the hot pies, campsite, disco, bar area and eyebrows. Our happy future as a function band is secure"
Fortunately there’s a lot more to the band and their music than their tongue in cheek critique implies.
What you get is a band from Cambridge using Alt Country and Folk tricks mixed with American guitar bands and clever lyrics that understand the rules of Pop. They’re working in different fields but, like The Beta Band, you also get a sense that the unexpected is just around the corner.
They’ve also managed to do this while still holding down day jobs, working tours around annual leave. In a really entertaining piece in the Guardian recently singer Steven Adams made an excellent case for it.
He’d played in struggling bands for years, spending the days watching TV in his pants, before concluding "It's pretty easy to be in a band and have a job.
"You go to work in the daytime and you play shows in the evenings and on weekends. If we all agreed to take a pay cut (from our existing salaries) and to "do" the Broken Family Band full time for a year, we would require a one-off tax-free payment of £250,000. That's twenty-five grand each, per year, for two years (one year to "do" the band, one year to sit on our arses moaning about how we could have made it, and £50,000 for the pot). Anyone want to offer that? We have assumed not, so doing it this way makes sense to us. Two of our number have mortgages, one has a family to support, and one has an expensive trainer habit. So we've kept our jobs"
Giving up the day job or signing off is one of the foundations of the Rock n Roll world but think of the possibilities if you had to keep your old job, even after you’d cracked it as Rock ‘n’ Roll fabulous.
There’s the very real risk of being taught by Sting, being sold an ice cream by The Stranglers Jet Black or getting your hair cut by Kevin Rowland or Charlie Harper. Keanu Reeves would have to struggle on as a struggling actor.
And what about Bez? Forever cursed to wander the twilight between the worlds of work and Rock n Roll as one of the maraca shaking Undead.
Broken Family Band's current album "Hello Love" opens with "Leaps". It’s a saucy coupling of The Violent Femmes and Magic Numbers. It could be the most blatant celebration of afternoon delight since....Afternoon Delight.
"I love the way that it hides and it leaps out at you and it leaps out at me in the afternoon". The song fades out on a fuzz of discordant guitar, just before falling asleep with the afternoons intended tasks still undone.
The single "Love Your Man Love Your Woman" manages to get that deep ringing sound, like the bom bom bom rhythm of Mr Blue Sky, with the guitar, bass and drums hammering out the same note.
It’s a Grinderman type bastard blues howl and as Steve Adams sings "You need trees and flowers and someone to hold you when you want to be held" his vocals make the change, but the relentless (Nick) Caveman hammering behind him doesn’t follow the progression.
Eventually they do and use up those final 2 chords. Oooh, but they make you wait. It’s primitive and clever and there’s a scouring guitar solo that could contribute to coastal erosion.
Steven Adams vocals have a reedy Gram Parsons twang (obviously that’s a good thing) on "So Many Lovers" while on "Don’t Change Your Mind" he offers practical advice "You can’t always sleep naked knowing you have to run for the bathroom."
Well you’ve either got to wear PJ’s or else it’s cup and run. Might be one for the message boards.
My favourite track though is the wistful and jauntily sour "Give And Take" - "I’m sure she’s found a person/ to give her some attention/ and if I ever do meet him/there are things that I should mention/She will take your heart and crush it/and maybe you two should discuss it".
There’s an odd rhythm to the words but he fits the words round the melody so they sound absolutely right. With the female backing vocals from Jen Maro and the general guitar thrummery it feels like Leonard Cohen’s "The Partisan" meets Bill Callahan. It ends with a really effective reverbed trumpet part.
Closing track "Seven Sisters" goes from Will Oldham fragile hesitancy to a punkathon ending complete with that Johnny Greenwood (from Radiohead) style trick of squeezing needling, mosquito sounds from his guitar and Adams repeated distorted "Hello Love" bellowed refrain.
For a band whose original intention was to play a few gigs at their local and make an album they’re managed to squeeze out four full length albums and a 2 mini albums since 2002 including the impeccably titled "The King Will Build A Disco."
Their website is a treat www.brokenfamilyband.com because it actually captures something of the spirit of the band, sarky and funny and with an awareness of how they fit in (or don’t).
Triumphant gigs are described as "Smashed it" and I’m sorry to have missed two of their gigs in 2002.
"We were inappropriate but ultimately victorious at St. Luke's Primary School PTA Barbeque. It was great. Brian Penny's 59th birthday party was excellent, especially the hot pies, campsite, disco, bar area and eyebrows. Our happy future as a function band is secure"
Friday, August 03, 2007
Kaiser Chiefs
You can go a long way with a great song title or a nifty lyric and even further if the quality of the musical goods backs it up. Kaiser Chiefs have surfed on waves of goodwill partly due to the worth of their words.
I would have liked "I Predict A Riot" for it's title alone and there are probably Academics already researching the magnificence of new album title "Yours Truly Angry Mob."
Even at the time, their rise to Indie Stadium status did seem rapid.
The phrase "I Predict A Riot" had started to crop up as e mail sign offs and in knowing conversations and then at a 5 year old's birthday party in 2005 Punk Rock Builder Dad leaned over to me to recommend the just released debut album "Employment" (A note to Record Company execs. Forget MTV…Children's birthday parties is the way to do it.)
And the rest of course is history; Brit Award scooping, Glastonbury triumphing, "Ruby" at number 1, being covered by Lilly Allen and Girls Aloud, scooting off to America with the usual mutterings of "Could this be the British band to crack America?"
They've also had the benefit of being called "A bad Blur" by Liam Gallagher.
Actually that's not unusual as poor Liam is like the dazed Japanese soldier who's just staggered out of the jungle unable to accept that the Blur/Oasis war is over. He sees Blur in anything from the postman to the toaster.
There is a thick seam of Brit Pop running through their music but it's as much XTC as Blur. Stephen Street produced both of the Kaiser's albums, and even if he wasn't the architect of Britpop, he was certainly the builders merchant, with his Blur and Morrissey production jobs.
The key to the Kaiser Chiefs current success though is their lack of success in their previous incarnation Parva. They've realised this is the last chance of a bite at the pop pie, so they're willing to put the work in, and elbow their way to the front of the queue.
When they reconvened as the Kaiser Chiefs in 2003, they ditched all the old material and purposefully went all out for entertainment and big catchy choruses.
And these choruses are clearly signposted with plenty of spaces for oooohh aaahhhhhhGGGH! (Or other appropriate vocal signage).
You know the chorus is on it's way and you know you'll probably get flattened.
Never mind the Kaiser Chiefs, some of these choruses charge over the hills like the combined forces of Chiefs Sitting Bull and Crazy Horse, relentless and irresistible. Bad news for Custer. Good news for the customer.
There are some clever words and some of them may well feature in a song like Na Na Na Na Naa, but the simplicity of the chorus means you can save mental energy for dancing and singing along. Commercial genius!
The other trick they use on tracks like I Predict A Riot or current single Everything Is Average Nowadays is to have long single note guitar lines; picking out the melody lines like 6 string rumble strips...to make absolutely sure your attention doesn't wander.
Ricky Wilson described his stage moves as being like a “Lithe Indie Ninja”. His stage persona of big waves, pogoing and crowd surfing where he likes to “Get out in the audience and see what they smell like” is plenty entertaining.
Especially from an Eddie Izzard look-alike in pub lunch office worker short sleeve shirt and tie combo.
The rhythm section have also done a trolley dash round the charisma department....witness big haired bassist Simon Rix and drummer Nick Hodgson.
Hodgson sings “Boxing Champ” from the second album which is a deliberately slight, piano and vocal affair with the excellent line “You were a boxing champ and I was a weakling. You didn't give me a chance, you gave me a beating.”
It's all a bit camp...and even better for the fact that Hodgson looks like the singer from Showaddywaddy who (warning....the following information is pub based research!) would only ever allow himself to be photographed sideways on....to let everyone see the full profile of the pipe in his drainpipes.
First album “Employment” has quite a range of styles from the powerhouse pogo chorus of “Oh My God” and the line “I've seen more blood than a back street dentist” to “You Can Have It All” which is pastoral XTC meets Duran Duran synths.
“Saturday Night” has the choice line “We are birds of a feather and you can be the fat one.” Musically it's Pop Scene era Blur and the revving motorcycle is apparently Graham Coxon's.
The second album “Yours Truly Angry Mob” released earlier this year, is the better of the two.
The intro to “Ruby” is one of the best of the year. It's a statement of intent. You just know this song is going somewhere and you're going to like it.
“The Angry Mob” starts off as “Modern Life Is Rubbish” era Blur meeting the overhanging guitars of “The Queen Is Dead” by The Smiths and changes gear halfway through for the coda “We are the angry mob, we like who we like, we hate who we hate”
There's also a bit of a Julian Cope feel to tracks like “I Can Do It Without You (But It Wouldn't Be Very Good)” and “Love's Not A Competition (But I'm Winning)”. Nice bracket work Ricky! I do like his line in "My Kind Of Guy" - "You're My Kind Of Guy Cos I Like Your Style And You Sound As Horrible As Me"
The best line of all though crops up on the albums best song. “Highroyds” is another of Wilson's despatches from the frontline of the teenage sidelines. Drinking and not getting into either clubs or girls. “I got a text from my ex. She wants to know when we're in London next” is Bolanesque genius
At their Glastonbury appearance 2 years ago they had the air of a band who knew their time had come. This year, Wilson's Indie Stadium theatrics and gestures didn't need balancing with irony. Their time was coming again.
The band never wanted small indie cosiness or to be smug and skint. So it's the full on tour of the UK's enormo sheds. They're not new, but they have got big.....and they are quite clever
I would have liked "I Predict A Riot" for it's title alone and there are probably Academics already researching the magnificence of new album title "Yours Truly Angry Mob."
Even at the time, their rise to Indie Stadium status did seem rapid.
The phrase "I Predict A Riot" had started to crop up as e mail sign offs and in knowing conversations and then at a 5 year old's birthday party in 2005 Punk Rock Builder Dad leaned over to me to recommend the just released debut album "Employment" (A note to Record Company execs. Forget MTV…Children's birthday parties is the way to do it.)
And the rest of course is history; Brit Award scooping, Glastonbury triumphing, "Ruby" at number 1, being covered by Lilly Allen and Girls Aloud, scooting off to America with the usual mutterings of "Could this be the British band to crack America?"
They've also had the benefit of being called "A bad Blur" by Liam Gallagher.
Actually that's not unusual as poor Liam is like the dazed Japanese soldier who's just staggered out of the jungle unable to accept that the Blur/Oasis war is over. He sees Blur in anything from the postman to the toaster.
There is a thick seam of Brit Pop running through their music but it's as much XTC as Blur. Stephen Street produced both of the Kaiser's albums, and even if he wasn't the architect of Britpop, he was certainly the builders merchant, with his Blur and Morrissey production jobs.
The key to the Kaiser Chiefs current success though is their lack of success in their previous incarnation Parva. They've realised this is the last chance of a bite at the pop pie, so they're willing to put the work in, and elbow their way to the front of the queue.
When they reconvened as the Kaiser Chiefs in 2003, they ditched all the old material and purposefully went all out for entertainment and big catchy choruses.
And these choruses are clearly signposted with plenty of spaces for oooohh aaahhhhhhGGGH! (Or other appropriate vocal signage).
You know the chorus is on it's way and you know you'll probably get flattened.
Never mind the Kaiser Chiefs, some of these choruses charge over the hills like the combined forces of Chiefs Sitting Bull and Crazy Horse, relentless and irresistible. Bad news for Custer. Good news for the customer.
There are some clever words and some of them may well feature in a song like Na Na Na Na Naa, but the simplicity of the chorus means you can save mental energy for dancing and singing along. Commercial genius!
The other trick they use on tracks like I Predict A Riot or current single Everything Is Average Nowadays is to have long single note guitar lines; picking out the melody lines like 6 string rumble strips...to make absolutely sure your attention doesn't wander.
Ricky Wilson described his stage moves as being like a “Lithe Indie Ninja”. His stage persona of big waves, pogoing and crowd surfing where he likes to “Get out in the audience and see what they smell like” is plenty entertaining.
Especially from an Eddie Izzard look-alike in pub lunch office worker short sleeve shirt and tie combo.
The rhythm section have also done a trolley dash round the charisma department....witness big haired bassist Simon Rix and drummer Nick Hodgson.
Hodgson sings “Boxing Champ” from the second album which is a deliberately slight, piano and vocal affair with the excellent line “You were a boxing champ and I was a weakling. You didn't give me a chance, you gave me a beating.”
It's all a bit camp...and even better for the fact that Hodgson looks like the singer from Showaddywaddy who (warning....the following information is pub based research!) would only ever allow himself to be photographed sideways on....to let everyone see the full profile of the pipe in his drainpipes.
First album “Employment” has quite a range of styles from the powerhouse pogo chorus of “Oh My God” and the line “I've seen more blood than a back street dentist” to “You Can Have It All” which is pastoral XTC meets Duran Duran synths.
“Saturday Night” has the choice line “We are birds of a feather and you can be the fat one.” Musically it's Pop Scene era Blur and the revving motorcycle is apparently Graham Coxon's.
The second album “Yours Truly Angry Mob” released earlier this year, is the better of the two.
The intro to “Ruby” is one of the best of the year. It's a statement of intent. You just know this song is going somewhere and you're going to like it.
“The Angry Mob” starts off as “Modern Life Is Rubbish” era Blur meeting the overhanging guitars of “The Queen Is Dead” by The Smiths and changes gear halfway through for the coda “We are the angry mob, we like who we like, we hate who we hate”
There's also a bit of a Julian Cope feel to tracks like “I Can Do It Without You (But It Wouldn't Be Very Good)” and “Love's Not A Competition (But I'm Winning)”. Nice bracket work Ricky! I do like his line in "My Kind Of Guy" - "You're My Kind Of Guy Cos I Like Your Style And You Sound As Horrible As Me"
The best line of all though crops up on the albums best song. “Highroyds” is another of Wilson's despatches from the frontline of the teenage sidelines. Drinking and not getting into either clubs or girls. “I got a text from my ex. She wants to know when we're in London next” is Bolanesque genius
At their Glastonbury appearance 2 years ago they had the air of a band who knew their time had come. This year, Wilson's Indie Stadium theatrics and gestures didn't need balancing with irony. Their time was coming again.
The band never wanted small indie cosiness or to be smug and skint. So it's the full on tour of the UK's enormo sheds. They're not new, but they have got big.....and they are quite clever
Monday, July 09, 2007
Badly Drawn Boy
You could describe Damon Gough AKA Badly Drawn Boy as a woolly faced, woolly-hatted Manc guitar strummer. But you could also describe him as a singer who manages to walk that fine line between sentimentality and whimsical humour, between easy pop and wilful awkwardness.
Pop Music is a difficult and dangerous business, (although Test Pilots and North Sea Divers may disagree) and songs can go disastrously wrong. For the aspiring singer songwriter, James Blunt is always round the corner.
Badly Drawn Boy’s live shows were once famously chaotic, with well written, rehearsed songs often losing out to half written fragments that he’d knocked together in the soundcheck, acoustic strolls through the audience, extended monologues, story telling and impromptu knock about covers.
After a series of hard to find e.p.’s his first album The Hour Of Bewilderbeast won the Mercury music prize in 2000. It goes from the Nick Drake, acoustic pickings and orchestral flourishes of tracks like The Shining or Stone On The Water to the shambling Fall sound of Everybody’s Stalking. (Mark E Smith once mistook Gough’s car for a taxi and jumped in demanding to be taken home...and Gough obliged. Don’t know much he usually paid. However Gough later co wrote and appeared on Fall b side Calendar).
Another Pearl has an intro riff that sounds like Cornershop’s Brimful Of Asha while This Song includes the lyrics “This song will heal your soul/Rest by this song and the peace that it brings/This beautiful song has wings.” Perversely, though, the stereo effect switches from speaker to speaker so rapidly and is so disorientating that it is actually unlistenable. And there we go – that’s the Badly Drawn Boy conundrum. Just as he’s created something lovely, he’s scared of the result and decides to mess with our heads instead.
He wrote the soundtrack for About A Boy, which works really well, and it’s key song Silent Sigh manages to be both melancholic and uplifting at the same time. (You’d also want to describe it as haunting but there is a strict quota on combining the words”haunting” and “melancholic”. It’s a bit like the Hay diet.
What Silent Sigh does have though is a really good example of why Gough’s vocals work so well. He never over sings, his voice is warm and conversational, it strains a little as he steps up with the melody but he is definitely not Mariah Carey in a hat. Glad we’ve settled that!
While Bewilderbeast is still seen as his defining work, I actually prefer Have You Fed the Fish from 2002, for the simple reason that that the songs are better. It’s not as eclectic and there’s less deliberate awkwardness (still enough to keep an edge, mind), but like I said - the songs are better.
Gough is a self confessed Springsteen nut, and was playing Thunder Road at early gigs. The opening moments of Have You Fed The Fish’s title track is the closest he’d come so far to the boss Sound of The Boss. Except that Bruce would never sing “I need a new eiderdown, I want some binoculars”. Odds are he also wouldn’t sing “I’ve killed all the mockingbirds, I’ve wrestled the octopus, I came out with extra arms, to carry your baggage”.
The Further I slide has got the rhythm of Sexual Healing, whilst Using Our Feet has got the sinuous stretchiness of Got To Give It Up. It’s mind boggling to think of Badly Drawn Boy morphing into Marvin Gaye’s bedroom soul. Bet he keeps his hat on!
Best track though is You Were Right, it’s straight ahead pop. Nothing straightforward about the domestic nightmare of a dream he had though. “I was married to the Queen, And Madonna lived next door, I think she took a shine to me, And the kids were all grown up, But I had to turn her down, ‘cos I was still in love with you”.
The song is supremely catchy, but thankfully he still can’t shake that awkward spirit though. There is a clumsy rhythmic hiccup where the guitars and drums sound like they’re falling over each other. Well they may have done the first time, but he’s kept it in and kept playing it the same way for subsequent years.
All Possibilities has been used in an advert for Comet. Hopefully he made some money out of it because in the video for the single itself he spent 90 minutes busking outside Waterloo Station for the grand sum of £1.60.
2004’s album One Plus One Is One is a lower key return to folky Nick Drake guitar pickings. And flutes ahoy! The sleeve notes include refer to the death of his grandfather in WW2 and the sudden death of a close friend The latest album Born In The UK has had the promotional might of EMI behind it, including free chipforks given away with the single and a tour that included 3 gigs in chip shops.
The actual song Born In The UK is 30 years of recent British history. “You wanna be a rebel then turn your hose pipe on/With two years to wait for the sound of Jilted John.”
Born In The UK
If the title track is the punslinger's nod to Bruce Springsteen there is more of Bruce’s influence on Welcome To The Underground and also on Journey From A To B. The Way Things Used To Be is country tinged and Long Way Round has a keyboard and trumpet sounds that recalls The Pale Fountains.
It’s all good stuff though and well worth a look at the Mac next month. You might see him in a chippie afterwards, or some other scruffy bloke singing.
Pop Music is a difficult and dangerous business, (although Test Pilots and North Sea Divers may disagree) and songs can go disastrously wrong. For the aspiring singer songwriter, James Blunt is always round the corner.
Badly Drawn Boy’s live shows were once famously chaotic, with well written, rehearsed songs often losing out to half written fragments that he’d knocked together in the soundcheck, acoustic strolls through the audience, extended monologues, story telling and impromptu knock about covers.
After a series of hard to find e.p.’s his first album The Hour Of Bewilderbeast won the Mercury music prize in 2000. It goes from the Nick Drake, acoustic pickings and orchestral flourishes of tracks like The Shining or Stone On The Water to the shambling Fall sound of Everybody’s Stalking. (Mark E Smith once mistook Gough’s car for a taxi and jumped in demanding to be taken home...and Gough obliged. Don’t know much he usually paid. However Gough later co wrote and appeared on Fall b side Calendar).
Another Pearl has an intro riff that sounds like Cornershop’s Brimful Of Asha while This Song includes the lyrics “This song will heal your soul/Rest by this song and the peace that it brings/This beautiful song has wings.” Perversely, though, the stereo effect switches from speaker to speaker so rapidly and is so disorientating that it is actually unlistenable. And there we go – that’s the Badly Drawn Boy conundrum. Just as he’s created something lovely, he’s scared of the result and decides to mess with our heads instead.
He wrote the soundtrack for About A Boy, which works really well, and it’s key song Silent Sigh manages to be both melancholic and uplifting at the same time. (You’d also want to describe it as haunting but there is a strict quota on combining the words”haunting” and “melancholic”. It’s a bit like the Hay diet.
What Silent Sigh does have though is a really good example of why Gough’s vocals work so well. He never over sings, his voice is warm and conversational, it strains a little as he steps up with the melody but he is definitely not Mariah Carey in a hat. Glad we’ve settled that!
While Bewilderbeast is still seen as his defining work, I actually prefer Have You Fed the Fish from 2002, for the simple reason that that the songs are better. It’s not as eclectic and there’s less deliberate awkwardness (still enough to keep an edge, mind), but like I said - the songs are better.
Gough is a self confessed Springsteen nut, and was playing Thunder Road at early gigs. The opening moments of Have You Fed The Fish’s title track is the closest he’d come so far to the boss Sound of The Boss. Except that Bruce would never sing “I need a new eiderdown, I want some binoculars”. Odds are he also wouldn’t sing “I’ve killed all the mockingbirds, I’ve wrestled the octopus, I came out with extra arms, to carry your baggage”.
The Further I slide has got the rhythm of Sexual Healing, whilst Using Our Feet has got the sinuous stretchiness of Got To Give It Up. It’s mind boggling to think of Badly Drawn Boy morphing into Marvin Gaye’s bedroom soul. Bet he keeps his hat on!
Best track though is You Were Right, it’s straight ahead pop. Nothing straightforward about the domestic nightmare of a dream he had though. “I was married to the Queen, And Madonna lived next door, I think she took a shine to me, And the kids were all grown up, But I had to turn her down, ‘cos I was still in love with you”.
The song is supremely catchy, but thankfully he still can’t shake that awkward spirit though. There is a clumsy rhythmic hiccup where the guitars and drums sound like they’re falling over each other. Well they may have done the first time, but he’s kept it in and kept playing it the same way for subsequent years.
All Possibilities has been used in an advert for Comet. Hopefully he made some money out of it because in the video for the single itself he spent 90 minutes busking outside Waterloo Station for the grand sum of £1.60.
2004’s album One Plus One Is One is a lower key return to folky Nick Drake guitar pickings. And flutes ahoy! The sleeve notes include refer to the death of his grandfather in WW2 and the sudden death of a close friend The latest album Born In The UK has had the promotional might of EMI behind it, including free chipforks given away with the single and a tour that included 3 gigs in chip shops.
The actual song Born In The UK is 30 years of recent British history. “You wanna be a rebel then turn your hose pipe on/With two years to wait for the sound of Jilted John.”
Born In The UK
If the title track is the punslinger's nod to Bruce Springsteen there is more of Bruce’s influence on Welcome To The Underground and also on Journey From A To B. The Way Things Used To Be is country tinged and Long Way Round has a keyboard and trumpet sounds that recalls The Pale Fountains.
It’s all good stuff though and well worth a look at the Mac next month. You might see him in a chippie afterwards, or some other scruffy bloke singing.
The Stills - Destroyer
It starts with an electric piano, and Hammond riff, two of my favourite sounds in Pop, so I'm instantly doubly hooked.
The song itself is one those American Alt rock sound meets late period James (eg “Laid”). Big and warm sounding with a bit of a feel of “You're So Good To Me” by the Beach Boys and it's got great big parping slabs of burbling brass.
So that's pretty much everything I'd look for in a record.
You've got to worry about the keyboard players beard though...that kind of hairy chin shelf was last seen on a character living in Greendale and having letters delivered by Postman Pat.
Destroyer video http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m9Y448s3fus
I like the fact that the record is called “Destroyer” and doesn't actually have the word "destroyer" in the song.
You can't beat using album titles by Kiss...especially when you are a bunch of pullover rocking Montreal art students. And I would count Kiss as one of my favourite bands, despite and also because of the fact that I never listen to them and have no interest in their music.
I just like the idea of the whole ludicrous thing they created. Revolving drum kits, rocket launching guitars, the merchandising…Gene Simmons. And who wouldn't want to be buried in a Kiss coffin?
I really like the sound of the Stills single and the way that singer Dave Hamelim has a good drawling delivery that manages to be both clear and earnest. And it does remind me of Tim Booth. But dear, oh dear... the lyrics.
"I will destroy you, Your soul impedes on mine, let go my free will, I can't stand compromise.....And the arrows are pointed and the archers delighted, the thrill the smell, The shit I've been put through.....I'm coming to your town "
Now there's always room in pop for a good vengeance song but I don't think The Stills lyrics have delivered.
Not only are they competing against the entire works of Nick Cave (either his vengeance or someone else's) or Morrissey's grumblings but there is also the absolute daddy of all song titles which pretty much explains the situation in real time. Just in the title alone!
I give you Melvin Van Peebles epic from the soundtrack of Sweet Sweetbacks Baadasssss Song (generally reckoned to be the first Blaxploitation film, the film also has a running time shorter than the song title I'm talking about).
Get ready, deep breath.... and... “The Man Tries Running His Usual Game but Sweetback Jones Is So Strong He Wastes the Hounds (Yeah! Yeah! And Besides That He Will Be Comin' Back Takin' Names And Collecting Dues)”.
But back to The Stills...”Destroyer” is a terrific song but sadly it's streets ahead of anything else on their just released second album, “Without Feathers”. The rest of the album is a bit pedestrian, and never really goes anywhere.
I'm still intrigued by their story though.
They formed in 2000 in Montreal. The first album “Logic Will Break Your Heart” came out in 2003 and they toured with the likes of Interpol and The Yeah Yeah Yeahs.
They certainly had that Joy Division, Bunnymen sound that the likes of Interpol and The Editors have been reviving. But then founder member and singer Greg Parquet left the band to go back University to finish his degree.
In a full and frank interview bassist Olivier Corbeil has said "For us, we were heading in a different direction for the record, I think Greg kind of felt like leaving. Not that we wanted him to leave, but we kind of felt that it wasn't a bad idea either.
“It wasn't a big deal. We hung out, had some beers, and he said, 'Yeah, I think I'm going to go finish this.' And I was like, 'Ah, that's cool' ". Beans comprehensively spilt!
So that's the singer and songwriter leaving after releasing a well received debut. Hmm. That can present a problem. So drummer Dave Hamelim steps forward.
Now this should be about as welcome as Phil Collins telling the rest of Genesis "Go on, lads I'll have a go" or indeed the (possibly apocryphal) homemade by Elvis porn movie where Elvis gets tired of filming and steps out from behind the camera to join in. A shaky leg indeed.
With Hamelim upfront on vocals and guitar, the band's sound changed from an English Post Punk to American Rock sound, closer to bands like Soul Asylum.
Although the album “Without Feathers” was originally released in the States last year, it's only just been released over here on Drowned In Sound. (Their site http://www.drownedinsound.com is always worth a look for new bands, reviews and scabrous comment) and they supported Kings Of Leon on their UK tour earlier this year.
Whether the radical change in style will pay off for the band though is debateable because there does seem to be a bit of a scramble for bands trying to nail that Joy Division Post Punk sound.
I proved this scientifically by watching the Glastonbury coverage this weekend, (from my sofa, getting into the spirit of the event by wearing wellies, avoiding the toilets and undercooking and overcharging myself for a veggie burger).
The Editors were paying their debts to Joy Division, and Bloc Party were doing their Joy Divison/Cure cut and shunt job.
When The Killers did their adventurous cover of Shadowplay. I was tickled by the way that the guitarist was punching the air. You wouldn't see Peter Hook doing that... unless there was actually someone in that particular airspace.
The song itself is one those American Alt rock sound meets late period James (eg “Laid”). Big and warm sounding with a bit of a feel of “You're So Good To Me” by the Beach Boys and it's got great big parping slabs of burbling brass.
So that's pretty much everything I'd look for in a record.
You've got to worry about the keyboard players beard though...that kind of hairy chin shelf was last seen on a character living in Greendale and having letters delivered by Postman Pat.
Destroyer video http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m9Y448s3fus
I like the fact that the record is called “Destroyer” and doesn't actually have the word "destroyer" in the song.
You can't beat using album titles by Kiss...especially when you are a bunch of pullover rocking Montreal art students. And I would count Kiss as one of my favourite bands, despite and also because of the fact that I never listen to them and have no interest in their music.
I just like the idea of the whole ludicrous thing they created. Revolving drum kits, rocket launching guitars, the merchandising…Gene Simmons. And who wouldn't want to be buried in a Kiss coffin?
I really like the sound of the Stills single and the way that singer Dave Hamelim has a good drawling delivery that manages to be both clear and earnest. And it does remind me of Tim Booth. But dear, oh dear... the lyrics.
"I will destroy you, Your soul impedes on mine, let go my free will, I can't stand compromise.....And the arrows are pointed and the archers delighted, the thrill the smell, The shit I've been put through.....I'm coming to your town "
Now there's always room in pop for a good vengeance song but I don't think The Stills lyrics have delivered.
Not only are they competing against the entire works of Nick Cave (either his vengeance or someone else's) or Morrissey's grumblings but there is also the absolute daddy of all song titles which pretty much explains the situation in real time. Just in the title alone!
I give you Melvin Van Peebles epic from the soundtrack of Sweet Sweetbacks Baadasssss Song (generally reckoned to be the first Blaxploitation film, the film also has a running time shorter than the song title I'm talking about).
Get ready, deep breath.... and... “The Man Tries Running His Usual Game but Sweetback Jones Is So Strong He Wastes the Hounds (Yeah! Yeah! And Besides That He Will Be Comin' Back Takin' Names And Collecting Dues)”.
But back to The Stills...”Destroyer” is a terrific song but sadly it's streets ahead of anything else on their just released second album, “Without Feathers”. The rest of the album is a bit pedestrian, and never really goes anywhere.
I'm still intrigued by their story though.
They formed in 2000 in Montreal. The first album “Logic Will Break Your Heart” came out in 2003 and they toured with the likes of Interpol and The Yeah Yeah Yeahs.
They certainly had that Joy Division, Bunnymen sound that the likes of Interpol and The Editors have been reviving. But then founder member and singer Greg Parquet left the band to go back University to finish his degree.
In a full and frank interview bassist Olivier Corbeil has said "For us, we were heading in a different direction for the record, I think Greg kind of felt like leaving. Not that we wanted him to leave, but we kind of felt that it wasn't a bad idea either.
“It wasn't a big deal. We hung out, had some beers, and he said, 'Yeah, I think I'm going to go finish this.' And I was like, 'Ah, that's cool' ". Beans comprehensively spilt!
So that's the singer and songwriter leaving after releasing a well received debut. Hmm. That can present a problem. So drummer Dave Hamelim steps forward.
Now this should be about as welcome as Phil Collins telling the rest of Genesis "Go on, lads I'll have a go" or indeed the (possibly apocryphal) homemade by Elvis porn movie where Elvis gets tired of filming and steps out from behind the camera to join in. A shaky leg indeed.
With Hamelim upfront on vocals and guitar, the band's sound changed from an English Post Punk to American Rock sound, closer to bands like Soul Asylum.
Although the album “Without Feathers” was originally released in the States last year, it's only just been released over here on Drowned In Sound. (Their site http://www.drownedinsound.com is always worth a look for new bands, reviews and scabrous comment) and they supported Kings Of Leon on their UK tour earlier this year.
Whether the radical change in style will pay off for the band though is debateable because there does seem to be a bit of a scramble for bands trying to nail that Joy Division Post Punk sound.
I proved this scientifically by watching the Glastonbury coverage this weekend, (from my sofa, getting into the spirit of the event by wearing wellies, avoiding the toilets and undercooking and overcharging myself for a veggie burger).
The Editors were paying their debts to Joy Division, and Bloc Party were doing their Joy Divison/Cure cut and shunt job.
When The Killers did their adventurous cover of Shadowplay. I was tickled by the way that the guitarist was punching the air. You wouldn't see Peter Hook doing that... unless there was actually someone in that particular airspace.
Saturday, June 16, 2007
Hayseed Dixie
We're not scared of gimmicks and novelties are we? It's better if the music comes first but you've got to warm to a band who have at least made the effort to come up with a good story. I don't fear the gimmick. I embrace the novelty and cop a sly feel of the one hit wonder. So how about Hayseed Dixie?
A bunch of hillbillies playing speeded up Bluegrass covers of AC/DC songs? I'll have some of that. According to their own story (which I'm buying into completely) it all started when stranger's car crashed near their isolated Tennessee valley home of Deer Lick Holler. On the back seat they found some AC/DC records, but they could only play them on their old 78 record player. "The boys all agreed it was some mighty fine country music. So, in memory of the stranger who had perished the boys set about learning these songs." Now anyone who doesn't believe that story will also have doubts about the sibling nature of The Ramones and may wonder why one of The Corrs just seemed slightly less attractive than the other pouting poppets.
Hayseed Dixie followed up the AC/DC album with rollicking live shows and the albums Kiss My Grass (a Kiss tribute), A Hot Piece Of Grass, Let There Be Rockgrass and the new album Weapons of Grass Destruction. The later albums have a mixture of classic rock and Punk covers, with a couple of originals thrown in. eg their own sensitive song about dealing with loss…I'm Keeping Your Poop In A Jar.
They play "Songs that are fun to play while drinking beer and are hopefully fun to listen to while drinking beer." The playing is phenomenal though. Drummerless, but stonking honky tonkin' with frantic mandolin, fiddle and banjo, dungarees, scary mullets and ponytails. And vocals that go from a yodelling yelp to a thick lascivious gurgle.
There are some people who think that AC/DC is schoolboy smut played by trolls. Some people think that Big Balls (elaborate well attended social occasions, with dancing), Lets Get It Up (possibly not about raising the Titanic), Sink The Pink (snooker?) are double entendres. These people have taken it the wrong way.
Hayseed Dixie think that AC/DC songs are about drinking, cheating, killing and hell. Which does indeed make for mighty fine country music. Frontman Barley Scotch reckons that the Lost Highway that Hank Williams sang about and AC/DC's Highway To Hell "Were the same damn road…They were singing about the same stuff, from the perspective of a working class guy who's reserving his right to fight the man and raise some hell." He also said that "I'm not trying to advocate alcohol…but I love beer." But later on in an interview with The Guardian it turns out that Barley Scotch is actually John Wheeler who runs a recording studio in Nashville and has a PhD. I still want to believe that his bandmates Reverend Don Wayne Reno and Deacon Dale Reno are trading under their real names though
On the dixified Highway To Hell you can hear all the little country and bluegrass tricks that the Stones and Gram Parsons used, played at berserker speed but still obviously both AC/DC and Bluegrass. It's great to hear him sing, "Hey Satan paid my dues singin' in this bluegrass band."
It's hard to top the way that Brian Johnson wails the line "Yeah you" on the original version of You Shook Me All Night Long, but Barley Scotches delivers the line "Knockin' me out with them American thighs" with the ripe country fruitiness and overstuffed contentment of a good ol boy that finds he's not just at Tractor Pull but there's a Hog Roast too! It's a sound that Brian would find hard to match, but Brian also finds it difficult to stand with his legs any less than 3 feet apart.
The new album features covers of the Scissor Sisters I Don't Feel Like Dancing, a countrified Holidays In The Sun and Judas Priest's Breakin' The Law.
Hayseed Dixie are a great idea for a band and they play like demons. Just have a look at their version of Motorhead's Ace Of Spades http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cYJUywl7CFw
They're not only ones to tackle AC/DC's back catalogue though. If Bluegrass AC/DC is unlikely, then how about Folky AC/DC? The first solo album from Mark Kozelek (from sensitive 4AD types Red House Painters) included 3 AC/DC songs recorded as folky acoustic interpretations. They worked so well he recorded an album full with it's follow up What's Next To The Moon. His version of Love At First Feel takes AC/DC's slashing strutting boogie, puts it's trousers back on and gives it a haunted, regretful quality. It's a contrast to when Bon Scott sings, "They told me it was disgusting, they told me it was a sin" because you know that Bon wouldn't want it any way but sinful and disgusting. There's a Kozelek sample at
http://www.badmanrecordingco.com/bands/default.aspx#11
In fact to square the whole folk/metal circle, Kozelek's version of Love At First Feel actually ends up sounding like That's The Way from Led Zep3, but obviously with less elves. AC/DC never wrote about elves. They were too busy writing about drinking, shagging and Rocking. And they did do a lot of Rocking
A bunch of hillbillies playing speeded up Bluegrass covers of AC/DC songs? I'll have some of that. According to their own story (which I'm buying into completely) it all started when stranger's car crashed near their isolated Tennessee valley home of Deer Lick Holler. On the back seat they found some AC/DC records, but they could only play them on their old 78 record player. "The boys all agreed it was some mighty fine country music. So, in memory of the stranger who had perished the boys set about learning these songs." Now anyone who doesn't believe that story will also have doubts about the sibling nature of The Ramones and may wonder why one of The Corrs just seemed slightly less attractive than the other pouting poppets.
Hayseed Dixie followed up the AC/DC album with rollicking live shows and the albums Kiss My Grass (a Kiss tribute), A Hot Piece Of Grass, Let There Be Rockgrass and the new album Weapons of Grass Destruction. The later albums have a mixture of classic rock and Punk covers, with a couple of originals thrown in. eg their own sensitive song about dealing with loss…I'm Keeping Your Poop In A Jar.
They play "Songs that are fun to play while drinking beer and are hopefully fun to listen to while drinking beer." The playing is phenomenal though. Drummerless, but stonking honky tonkin' with frantic mandolin, fiddle and banjo, dungarees, scary mullets and ponytails. And vocals that go from a yodelling yelp to a thick lascivious gurgle.
There are some people who think that AC/DC is schoolboy smut played by trolls. Some people think that Big Balls (elaborate well attended social occasions, with dancing), Lets Get It Up (possibly not about raising the Titanic), Sink The Pink (snooker?) are double entendres. These people have taken it the wrong way.
Hayseed Dixie think that AC/DC songs are about drinking, cheating, killing and hell. Which does indeed make for mighty fine country music. Frontman Barley Scotch reckons that the Lost Highway that Hank Williams sang about and AC/DC's Highway To Hell "Were the same damn road…They were singing about the same stuff, from the perspective of a working class guy who's reserving his right to fight the man and raise some hell." He also said that "I'm not trying to advocate alcohol…but I love beer." But later on in an interview with The Guardian it turns out that Barley Scotch is actually John Wheeler who runs a recording studio in Nashville and has a PhD. I still want to believe that his bandmates Reverend Don Wayne Reno and Deacon Dale Reno are trading under their real names though
On the dixified Highway To Hell you can hear all the little country and bluegrass tricks that the Stones and Gram Parsons used, played at berserker speed but still obviously both AC/DC and Bluegrass. It's great to hear him sing, "Hey Satan paid my dues singin' in this bluegrass band."
It's hard to top the way that Brian Johnson wails the line "Yeah you" on the original version of You Shook Me All Night Long, but Barley Scotches delivers the line "Knockin' me out with them American thighs" with the ripe country fruitiness and overstuffed contentment of a good ol boy that finds he's not just at Tractor Pull but there's a Hog Roast too! It's a sound that Brian would find hard to match, but Brian also finds it difficult to stand with his legs any less than 3 feet apart.
The new album features covers of the Scissor Sisters I Don't Feel Like Dancing, a countrified Holidays In The Sun and Judas Priest's Breakin' The Law.
Hayseed Dixie are a great idea for a band and they play like demons. Just have a look at their version of Motorhead's Ace Of Spades http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cYJUywl7CFw
They're not only ones to tackle AC/DC's back catalogue though. If Bluegrass AC/DC is unlikely, then how about Folky AC/DC? The first solo album from Mark Kozelek (from sensitive 4AD types Red House Painters) included 3 AC/DC songs recorded as folky acoustic interpretations. They worked so well he recorded an album full with it's follow up What's Next To The Moon. His version of Love At First Feel takes AC/DC's slashing strutting boogie, puts it's trousers back on and gives it a haunted, regretful quality. It's a contrast to when Bon Scott sings, "They told me it was disgusting, they told me it was a sin" because you know that Bon wouldn't want it any way but sinful and disgusting. There's a Kozelek sample at
http://www.badmanrecordingco.com/bands/default.aspx#11
In fact to square the whole folk/metal circle, Kozelek's version of Love At First Feel actually ends up sounding like That's The Way from Led Zep3, but obviously with less elves. AC/DC never wrote about elves. They were too busy writing about drinking, shagging and Rocking. And they did do a lot of Rocking
Monday, June 11, 2007
Richard Hawley
When the Arctic Monkeys received their Mercury award with the words "Call the police, Richard Hawley's been robbed" it was a good natured nod to their Sheffield neighbour. It seemed that the world had almost caught up with Hawley's modern retro melancholia.
On that occasion he missed out on a cheque and something to prop behind the toilet door, but with his fourth album Coles Corner, he had delivered something new, in an old fashioned way....he'd also taken his time doing it.
I mean what is the likelihood of a 40 year old guitarist with greased back hair, specs and a hair lip making that move a few feet to the centre of the stage, from hired hand to star and then that big leap into our hearts?
"I could always hum along cleaning the pots. But after the Longpigs split I thought it was about time I stopped washing the pots and crack on with writing and recording".
He originally played guitar with Sheffield indie poppers Treebound Story and the more angsty LongPigs. When the latter disintegrated space was at a premium in Drink and Drugs hell.
Old friend Jarvis Cocker threw him a lifeline with his offer to play guitar for Pulp on their popularity squashing “This Is Hardcore” album. He spent the next six years working with Pulp and also Cocker's art/performance skeleton suit wearing side project, Relaxed Muscle.
He also played the guitar solo on All Saints version of “Under The Bridge”, wrote “Clean” for Robbie Williams but turned down further collaborations with him because he wouldn't have known what to do with the money. "I just didn't want to do it. It would have changed my life too much. Earning millions of pounds is not the reason I get up in the morning".
Hawley grew up in Pitsmoor, Sheffield where his dad was a steelworker who played in rock n roll bands. Hawley started playing guitar at 6 and was gigging with his dad and uncle as a teenager. Hawley's musical heroes are the likes of Link Wray and the original Sun artists, like Johnny Cash and Jerry Lee Lewis...probably just like his dad.
Now I think there's something quite poetic and fitting about growing up in a Rock 'n' Roll household, having a youthful dalliance with indie pop and then hitting your musical prime as you approach your forties with music that draws heavily from your dad’s influence.
It's all in the Sidies....The sideburns you have at 40 are different to the ones of your 20's. Bushy grey truck driving monsters....none of your razored clubland cool, designer beers and bars...it's all tea and greasy spoon.
Which is fairly Rock 'n' roll when you consider that that the modern British mecca for Rock 'n' Roll is the original Rock 'n' Roll Mecca. The Ace Cafe with a car park full of oil leaking British bikes that dropped their engines in the road on the journey. Tellingly Hawley's 3rd album Lowedges has a classic BSA on the cover.
What Hawley has done with his music is to take a retro grown up, adult music, strip out any elements that don't work anymore, (there have been some very odd ideas about backing vocals and orchestrations that although they were ground breaking and maybe even necessary at the time, when you're given the choice, you wouldn't use again.) Richard Hawley had the choice and hasn't used them again.
Take for example Ray Charles “Modern Sounds In Country And Western”. As a link in the development of soul music and as a shake up to the country music establishment it's crucially important. But 45 years on, it can sound a bit syrupy to my ears.
Well Hawley has taken the style and sound of Roy Orbison, Sinatra or Johnny Cash and turned it into a very late night music. But without the cheese, despite the fact that he does call it cheesy old bloke music. The self deprecation is part of his charm.
He's an unabashed crooner and a shameless romantic and as the cd slides into the drawer, the hour seems to get later, the whisky bottle gets emptier and (depending on the song) the lover is either longer gone or closer to home.
And because this music is from the past if your TV's on in the corner, you'll find it's got less channels and your central heating has turned into a hissing gas fire.
Because Hawley is very muchin the wistful crooner tradition, you're not going to get the full highs and lows of the feelings behind the songs just from his vocals. It's just not part of the style.
That whole easy tradition that Hawley has drawn from, that Frank Sinatra, rinky dink and Martinis, showed pain without the wrenching Soul style pain of what Sam Moore from Sam and Dave called "The ugly face." The key to depth in Hawley's music is the arrangements rather than his vocals.
Hawley's arrangements are built on sparse echoing guitars, gentle sweeps from the lap steel and plenty of reverb. It's Twin Peaks soundtrack territory. Lowedges from 2003 is very much built on this sound with the likes of “Darlin'” with its Roy Orbison vocal style.
There are lots of songs about going away and coming back...exactly what the heartbroken crooner needs. “You Don't Miss Your Water (Till Your River Runs Dry)” has the line "Like A Thief In The Night, You Stole the love from my world... You Don't Miss Your Water Till Your River Runs Dry. You don't miss your lover till they're waving goodbye." And let's face it if you're never going to hear Roy Orbison sing those lines then Richard Hawley will do just fine.
“I'm On Nights” is a wonderful song built on a guitar that twangs like broken heartstrings. It feels like “I'd Rather Go Blind” which has been covered by Etta James, Clarence Carter (who was blind) and Rod Stewart (who was blonde, apparently) amongst many others.
Just the phrase itself "I'm On Nights" gives it an English feel despite the fact that he's crooning an American style song. "I'm on nights, we need the money" but in classic style he'll be coming back "Now it's time to lose your sorrow, I'm on days and off tomorrow."
While “Lowedges” mines the a rich but underplayed echoing guitar sound, “Coles Corner”from 2005 spans a wider range of styles.
“Coles Corner” refers to the popular meeting spot for lovers outside the Cole Brothers department store in Sheffield. Even though it was demolished in 1969, local people still refer to it and still arrange to meet there. The title track starts with an impossibly lovely sweep of strings as Hawley hopes that "Maybe there's someone waiting for me with a smile and a flower in her hair."
Actually he gets stood up, but the whole thing of singing about a place that no longer really exists, but is still a part of the city's emotional and social landscape and part of the soundtrack that's in his head definitely seems a very Richard Hawley thing to do.
“Darlin' Wait For Me.” Oh yes it's another darlin' song, another song about going away and coming back and another song where you can hear hints of Elvis. Thing is you can bet, Hawley can always hear Elvis.
“Tonight” is another song that seems rooted in Sheffield and while there may be other cities that have hills, to my ears the only thing that could make this song more Sheffield would be a line about Richard Hawley's beloved Henderson's Relish and the less loved Human League.
......"Oh tonight I got it really bad, Maybe I'll go out walking, Don't feel like staying home, Might take the car up to the hills and watch the city lights below."
“Wading Through The Waters Of My Time” is Johnny Cash style Country whilst on Woody Guthrie's “Who's Gonna Shoe Your Pretty Feet” the echo is on the vocal rather than the instrumentation.
It's sparse and haunting with a thick, muted sound from the barely brushed guitar. Closing track “Last Orders” was written in a taxi on the way to the studio and is more Twin Peaky atmospherics. Maybe if the journey had been longer it wouldn't have ended up as an instrumental. Nonetheless it's a clever contrast with the lushness of the opening title track.
“Coles Corner” is the critic’s choice but my tip is buy both and spend more time with “Lowedges”.
On that occasion he missed out on a cheque and something to prop behind the toilet door, but with his fourth album Coles Corner, he had delivered something new, in an old fashioned way....he'd also taken his time doing it.
I mean what is the likelihood of a 40 year old guitarist with greased back hair, specs and a hair lip making that move a few feet to the centre of the stage, from hired hand to star and then that big leap into our hearts?
"I could always hum along cleaning the pots. But after the Longpigs split I thought it was about time I stopped washing the pots and crack on with writing and recording".
He originally played guitar with Sheffield indie poppers Treebound Story and the more angsty LongPigs. When the latter disintegrated space was at a premium in Drink and Drugs hell.
Old friend Jarvis Cocker threw him a lifeline with his offer to play guitar for Pulp on their popularity squashing “This Is Hardcore” album. He spent the next six years working with Pulp and also Cocker's art/performance skeleton suit wearing side project, Relaxed Muscle.
He also played the guitar solo on All Saints version of “Under The Bridge”, wrote “Clean” for Robbie Williams but turned down further collaborations with him because he wouldn't have known what to do with the money. "I just didn't want to do it. It would have changed my life too much. Earning millions of pounds is not the reason I get up in the morning".
Hawley grew up in Pitsmoor, Sheffield where his dad was a steelworker who played in rock n roll bands. Hawley started playing guitar at 6 and was gigging with his dad and uncle as a teenager. Hawley's musical heroes are the likes of Link Wray and the original Sun artists, like Johnny Cash and Jerry Lee Lewis...probably just like his dad.
Now I think there's something quite poetic and fitting about growing up in a Rock 'n' Roll household, having a youthful dalliance with indie pop and then hitting your musical prime as you approach your forties with music that draws heavily from your dad’s influence.
It's all in the Sidies....The sideburns you have at 40 are different to the ones of your 20's. Bushy grey truck driving monsters....none of your razored clubland cool, designer beers and bars...it's all tea and greasy spoon.
Which is fairly Rock 'n' roll when you consider that that the modern British mecca for Rock 'n' Roll is the original Rock 'n' Roll Mecca. The Ace Cafe with a car park full of oil leaking British bikes that dropped their engines in the road on the journey. Tellingly Hawley's 3rd album Lowedges has a classic BSA on the cover.
What Hawley has done with his music is to take a retro grown up, adult music, strip out any elements that don't work anymore, (there have been some very odd ideas about backing vocals and orchestrations that although they were ground breaking and maybe even necessary at the time, when you're given the choice, you wouldn't use again.) Richard Hawley had the choice and hasn't used them again.
Take for example Ray Charles “Modern Sounds In Country And Western”. As a link in the development of soul music and as a shake up to the country music establishment it's crucially important. But 45 years on, it can sound a bit syrupy to my ears.
Well Hawley has taken the style and sound of Roy Orbison, Sinatra or Johnny Cash and turned it into a very late night music. But without the cheese, despite the fact that he does call it cheesy old bloke music. The self deprecation is part of his charm.
He's an unabashed crooner and a shameless romantic and as the cd slides into the drawer, the hour seems to get later, the whisky bottle gets emptier and (depending on the song) the lover is either longer gone or closer to home.
And because this music is from the past if your TV's on in the corner, you'll find it's got less channels and your central heating has turned into a hissing gas fire.
Because Hawley is very muchin the wistful crooner tradition, you're not going to get the full highs and lows of the feelings behind the songs just from his vocals. It's just not part of the style.
That whole easy tradition that Hawley has drawn from, that Frank Sinatra, rinky dink and Martinis, showed pain without the wrenching Soul style pain of what Sam Moore from Sam and Dave called "The ugly face." The key to depth in Hawley's music is the arrangements rather than his vocals.
Hawley's arrangements are built on sparse echoing guitars, gentle sweeps from the lap steel and plenty of reverb. It's Twin Peaks soundtrack territory. Lowedges from 2003 is very much built on this sound with the likes of “Darlin'” with its Roy Orbison vocal style.
There are lots of songs about going away and coming back...exactly what the heartbroken crooner needs. “You Don't Miss Your Water (Till Your River Runs Dry)” has the line "Like A Thief In The Night, You Stole the love from my world... You Don't Miss Your Water Till Your River Runs Dry. You don't miss your lover till they're waving goodbye." And let's face it if you're never going to hear Roy Orbison sing those lines then Richard Hawley will do just fine.
“I'm On Nights” is a wonderful song built on a guitar that twangs like broken heartstrings. It feels like “I'd Rather Go Blind” which has been covered by Etta James, Clarence Carter (who was blind) and Rod Stewart (who was blonde, apparently) amongst many others.
Just the phrase itself "I'm On Nights" gives it an English feel despite the fact that he's crooning an American style song. "I'm on nights, we need the money" but in classic style he'll be coming back "Now it's time to lose your sorrow, I'm on days and off tomorrow."
While “Lowedges” mines the a rich but underplayed echoing guitar sound, “Coles Corner”from 2005 spans a wider range of styles.
“Coles Corner” refers to the popular meeting spot for lovers outside the Cole Brothers department store in Sheffield. Even though it was demolished in 1969, local people still refer to it and still arrange to meet there. The title track starts with an impossibly lovely sweep of strings as Hawley hopes that "Maybe there's someone waiting for me with a smile and a flower in her hair."
Actually he gets stood up, but the whole thing of singing about a place that no longer really exists, but is still a part of the city's emotional and social landscape and part of the soundtrack that's in his head definitely seems a very Richard Hawley thing to do.
“Darlin' Wait For Me.” Oh yes it's another darlin' song, another song about going away and coming back and another song where you can hear hints of Elvis. Thing is you can bet, Hawley can always hear Elvis.
“Tonight” is another song that seems rooted in Sheffield and while there may be other cities that have hills, to my ears the only thing that could make this song more Sheffield would be a line about Richard Hawley's beloved Henderson's Relish and the less loved Human League.
......"Oh tonight I got it really bad, Maybe I'll go out walking, Don't feel like staying home, Might take the car up to the hills and watch the city lights below."
“Wading Through The Waters Of My Time” is Johnny Cash style Country whilst on Woody Guthrie's “Who's Gonna Shoe Your Pretty Feet” the echo is on the vocal rather than the instrumentation.
It's sparse and haunting with a thick, muted sound from the barely brushed guitar. Closing track “Last Orders” was written in a taxi on the way to the studio and is more Twin Peaky atmospherics. Maybe if the journey had been longer it wouldn't have ended up as an instrumental. Nonetheless it's a clever contrast with the lushness of the opening title track.
“Coles Corner” is the critic’s choice but my tip is buy both and spend more time with “Lowedges”.
Sunday, June 10, 2007
Richard Hawley
When the Arctic Monkeys received their Mercury award with the words "Call the police, Richard Hawley's been robbed" it was a good natured nod to their Sheffield neighbour. It seemed that the world had almost caught up with Hawley's modern retro melancholia. On that occasion he missed out on a cheque and something to prop behind the toilet door, but with his album 4 th Coles Corner, he had delivered something new, in an old fashioned way....he'd also taken his time doing it. I mean what is the likelihood of a 40 year old guitarist with greased back hair, specs and a hair lip making that move a few feet to the centre of the stage, from hired hand to star and then that big leap into our hearts?
"I could always hum along cleaning the pots. But after the Longpigs split I thought it was about time I stopped washing the pots and crack on with writing and recording"
He originally played guitar with Sheffield indie poppers Treebound Story and the more angsty LongPigs. When the latter disintegrated space was at a premium in Drink and Drugs hell. Old friend Jarvis Cocker threw him a lifeline with his offer to play guitar for Pulp on their popularity squashing This Is Hardcore album. He spent the next six years working with Pulp and also Cocker's art/performance skeleton suit wearing side project, Relaxed Muscle. He also played the guitar solo on All Saints version of Under The Bridge, wrote Clean for Robbie Williams but turned down further collaborations with him because he wouldn't have known what to do with the money. "I just didn't want to do it. It would have changed my life too much. Earning millions of pounds is not the reason I get up in the morning"
Hawley grew up in Pitsmoor Sheffield where his dad was a steelworker who played in rock n roll bands. Hawley started playing guitar at 6 and was gigging with his dad and uncle as a teenager. Hawley's musical heroes are the likes of Link Wray and the original Sun artists, like Johnny Cash and Jerry Lee Lewis...probably just like his dad.
Now I think there's something quite poetic and fitting about growing up in a Rock 'n' Roll household, having a youthful dalliance with indie pop and then hitting your musical prime as you approach your forties with music that draws heavily from your dads influence. It's all in the Sidies....The sideburns you have at 40 are different to the ones of your 20's. Bushy grey truck driving monsters....none of your razored clubland cool, designer beers and bars...it's all tea and greasy spoon. Which is fairly Rock 'n' roll when you consider that that the modern British mecca for Rock 'n' Roll is the original Rock 'n' Roll Mecca. The Ace Cafe with a car park full of oil leaking British bikes that dropped their engines in the road on the journey. Tellingly Hawley's 3rd album Lowedges has a classic BSA on the cover.
What Hawley has done with his music is to take a retro grown up, adult music, strip out any elements that don't work anymore, (there have been some very odd ideas about backing vocals and orchestrations that although they were ground breaking and maybe even necessary at the time, when you're given the choice, you wouldn't use again. Richard Hawley had the choice and hasn't used them again. Take for example Ray Charles Modern Sounds In Country And Western. As a link in the development of soul music and as a shake up to the country music establishment it's crucially important. But 45 years on, it can sound a bit syrupy to my ears. Well Hawley has taken the style and sound of Roy Orbison, Sinatra or Johnny Cash and turned it into a very late night music. But without the cheese, despite the fact that he does call it cheesy old bloke music. The self depreciation is part of his charm.
He's an unabashed crooner and a shameless romantic and as the cd slides into the drawer, the hour seems to get later, the whisky bottle gets emptier and (depending on the song) the lover is either longer gone or closer to home. And because this music is from the past if your TV's on in the corner, you'll find it's got less channels and your central heating has turned into a hissing gas fire.
Because Hawley is very much in the wistful crooner tradition, you're not going to get the full highs and lows of the feelings behind the songs, just from his vocals. It's just not part of the style. That whole easy tradition that Hawley has drawn from, that Frank Sinatra, rinky dink and Martinis, showed pain without the wrenching Soul style pain of what Sam Moore from Sam and Dave called "The ugly face." The key to depth in Hawley's music is the arrangements rather than his vocals.
Hawley's arrangements are built on sparse echoing guitars, gentle sweeps from the lap steel and plenty of reverb. It's Twin Peaks soundtrack territory. Lowedges from 2003 is very much built on this sound with the likes of Darlin' with its Roy Orbison vocal style. There are lots of songs about going away and coming back...exactly what the heartbroken crooner needs. You Don't Miss Your Water (Till Your River Runs Dry) has the line "Like A Thief In The Night, You Stole the love from my world... You Don't Miss Your Water Till Your River Runs Dry. You don't miss your lover till they're waving goodbye." And let's face it if you're never going to hear Roy Orbison sing those lines then Richard Hawley will do just fine.
I'm On Nights is a wonderful song built on a guitar that twangs like broken heartstrings. It feels like I'd Rather Go Blind which has been covered by Etta James, Clarence Carter (who was blind) and Rod Stewart (who was blonde, apparently) amongst many others. Just the phrase itself "I'm On Nights" gives it an English feel despite the fact that he's crooning an American style song. "I'm on nights, we need the money" but in classic style he'll be coming back "Now it's time to lose your sorrow, I'm on days and off tomorrow."
While Lowedges mines the a rich but underplayed echoing guitar sound, Coles Corner from 2005 spans a wider range of styles.
Coles Corner refers to the popular meeting spot for lovers outside the Cole Brothers department store in Sheffield. Even though it was demolished in 1969, local people still refer to it and still arrange to meet there. The title track starts with an impossibly lovely sweep of strings as Hawley hopes that "Maybe there's someone waiting for me with a smile and a flower in her hair." Actually he gets stood up but the whole thing of singing about a place that no longer really exists, but is still a part of the city's emotional and social landscape and part of the soundtrack that's in his head definitely seems a very Richard Hawley thing to do.
Darlin'Wait For Me. Oh yes it's another darlin' song, another song about going away and coming back and another song where you can hear hints of Elvis. Thing is you can bet, Hawley can always hear Elvis
Tonight is another song that seems rooted in Sheffield and while there may be other cities that have hills, to my ears the only thing that could make this song more Sheffield would be a line about Richard Hawley's beloved Henderson's Relish and the less loved Human League. ......"Oh tonight I got it really bad, Maybe I'll go out walking, Don't feel like staying home, Might take the car up to the hills and watch the city lights below."
Wading Through The Waters Of My Time is Johnny Cash style Country whilst on Woody Guthrie's Who's Gonna Shoe Your Pretty Feet the echo is on the vocal rather than the instrumentation. It's sparse and haunting with a thick, muted sound from the barely brushed guitar. Closing track Last Orders was written in a taxi on the way to the studio and is more Twin Peaky atmospherics. Maybe if the journey had been longer it wouldn't have ended up as an instrumental. Nonetheless it's a clever contrast with the lushness of the opening title track.
Coles Corner is the critics choice but my tip is buy both and spend more time with Lowedges
"I could always hum along cleaning the pots. But after the Longpigs split I thought it was about time I stopped washing the pots and crack on with writing and recording"
He originally played guitar with Sheffield indie poppers Treebound Story and the more angsty LongPigs. When the latter disintegrated space was at a premium in Drink and Drugs hell. Old friend Jarvis Cocker threw him a lifeline with his offer to play guitar for Pulp on their popularity squashing This Is Hardcore album. He spent the next six years working with Pulp and also Cocker's art/performance skeleton suit wearing side project, Relaxed Muscle. He also played the guitar solo on All Saints version of Under The Bridge, wrote Clean for Robbie Williams but turned down further collaborations with him because he wouldn't have known what to do with the money. "I just didn't want to do it. It would have changed my life too much. Earning millions of pounds is not the reason I get up in the morning"
Hawley grew up in Pitsmoor Sheffield where his dad was a steelworker who played in rock n roll bands. Hawley started playing guitar at 6 and was gigging with his dad and uncle as a teenager. Hawley's musical heroes are the likes of Link Wray and the original Sun artists, like Johnny Cash and Jerry Lee Lewis...probably just like his dad.
Now I think there's something quite poetic and fitting about growing up in a Rock 'n' Roll household, having a youthful dalliance with indie pop and then hitting your musical prime as you approach your forties with music that draws heavily from your dads influence. It's all in the Sidies....The sideburns you have at 40 are different to the ones of your 20's. Bushy grey truck driving monsters....none of your razored clubland cool, designer beers and bars...it's all tea and greasy spoon. Which is fairly Rock 'n' roll when you consider that that the modern British mecca for Rock 'n' Roll is the original Rock 'n' Roll Mecca. The Ace Cafe with a car park full of oil leaking British bikes that dropped their engines in the road on the journey. Tellingly Hawley's 3rd album Lowedges has a classic BSA on the cover.
What Hawley has done with his music is to take a retro grown up, adult music, strip out any elements that don't work anymore, (there have been some very odd ideas about backing vocals and orchestrations that although they were ground breaking and maybe even necessary at the time, when you're given the choice, you wouldn't use again. Richard Hawley had the choice and hasn't used them again. Take for example Ray Charles Modern Sounds In Country And Western. As a link in the development of soul music and as a shake up to the country music establishment it's crucially important. But 45 years on, it can sound a bit syrupy to my ears. Well Hawley has taken the style and sound of Roy Orbison, Sinatra or Johnny Cash and turned it into a very late night music. But without the cheese, despite the fact that he does call it cheesy old bloke music. The self depreciation is part of his charm.
He's an unabashed crooner and a shameless romantic and as the cd slides into the drawer, the hour seems to get later, the whisky bottle gets emptier and (depending on the song) the lover is either longer gone or closer to home. And because this music is from the past if your TV's on in the corner, you'll find it's got less channels and your central heating has turned into a hissing gas fire.
Because Hawley is very much in the wistful crooner tradition, you're not going to get the full highs and lows of the feelings behind the songs, just from his vocals. It's just not part of the style. That whole easy tradition that Hawley has drawn from, that Frank Sinatra, rinky dink and Martinis, showed pain without the wrenching Soul style pain of what Sam Moore from Sam and Dave called "The ugly face." The key to depth in Hawley's music is the arrangements rather than his vocals.
Hawley's arrangements are built on sparse echoing guitars, gentle sweeps from the lap steel and plenty of reverb. It's Twin Peaks soundtrack territory. Lowedges from 2003 is very much built on this sound with the likes of Darlin' with its Roy Orbison vocal style. There are lots of songs about going away and coming back...exactly what the heartbroken crooner needs. You Don't Miss Your Water (Till Your River Runs Dry) has the line "Like A Thief In The Night, You Stole the love from my world... You Don't Miss Your Water Till Your River Runs Dry. You don't miss your lover till they're waving goodbye." And let's face it if you're never going to hear Roy Orbison sing those lines then Richard Hawley will do just fine.
I'm On Nights is a wonderful song built on a guitar that twangs like broken heartstrings. It feels like I'd Rather Go Blind which has been covered by Etta James, Clarence Carter (who was blind) and Rod Stewart (who was blonde, apparently) amongst many others. Just the phrase itself "I'm On Nights" gives it an English feel despite the fact that he's crooning an American style song. "I'm on nights, we need the money" but in classic style he'll be coming back "Now it's time to lose your sorrow, I'm on days and off tomorrow."
While Lowedges mines the a rich but underplayed echoing guitar sound, Coles Corner from 2005 spans a wider range of styles.
Coles Corner refers to the popular meeting spot for lovers outside the Cole Brothers department store in Sheffield. Even though it was demolished in 1969, local people still refer to it and still arrange to meet there. The title track starts with an impossibly lovely sweep of strings as Hawley hopes that "Maybe there's someone waiting for me with a smile and a flower in her hair." Actually he gets stood up but the whole thing of singing about a place that no longer really exists, but is still a part of the city's emotional and social landscape and part of the soundtrack that's in his head definitely seems a very Richard Hawley thing to do.
Darlin'Wait For Me. Oh yes it's another darlin' song, another song about going away and coming back and another song where you can hear hints of Elvis. Thing is you can bet, Hawley can always hear Elvis
Tonight is another song that seems rooted in Sheffield and while there may be other cities that have hills, to my ears the only thing that could make this song more Sheffield would be a line about Richard Hawley's beloved Henderson's Relish and the less loved Human League. ......"Oh tonight I got it really bad, Maybe I'll go out walking, Don't feel like staying home, Might take the car up to the hills and watch the city lights below."
Wading Through The Waters Of My Time is Johnny Cash style Country whilst on Woody Guthrie's Who's Gonna Shoe Your Pretty Feet the echo is on the vocal rather than the instrumentation. It's sparse and haunting with a thick, muted sound from the barely brushed guitar. Closing track Last Orders was written in a taxi on the way to the studio and is more Twin Peaky atmospherics. Maybe if the journey had been longer it wouldn't have ended up as an instrumental. Nonetheless it's a clever contrast with the lushness of the opening title track.
Coles Corner is the critics choice but my tip is buy both and spend more time with Lowedges
Saturday, June 02, 2007
Devo
Now here's the question. Were Devo a silly group? Apart from the Flowerpot hats, the jerky songs and jerkier dancing, the yellow chemical suits and half baked theories about unbaked potatoes and evolution going backwards? Well there's certainly a lot to love about the first album but they also encompass social history and change, from their arty beginnings and the Kent State university shootings through to Punk and the MTV generation. Phew! Pass me a flowerpot hat and let's get started.
Bassist Gerald Casales, Mark Mothersbaugh and original guitarist Bob Lewis were at Kent State University Ohio and had used the devolution concept or the idea of humans evolving into primitive forms as the basis for art exhibitions. The theory really took root with them with the killings at Kent State University in 1970 as 4 students were shot dead by The National Guard. Casales told The Vermont Review that "I was white hippie boy and then I saw exit wounds from M1 rifles out of the backs of two people I knew. Two of the four people who were killed, Jeffrey Miller and Allison Krause, were my friends… Until then I was a hippie. I thought that the world is essentially good. If people were evil, there was justice and that the law mattered. All of those silly naïve things. I saw the depths of the horrors and lies and the evil. In the paper that evening, the Akron Beacon Journal, said that students were running around armed and that officers had been hurt. So deputy sheriffs went out and deputized citizens. They drove around with shotguns and there was martial law for ten days. 7 PM curfew. It was open season for students. We lived in fear."
Like Malcolm Mclaren hanging Punk Rock up on the coat hooks of situationism and the Paris riots, Devo had a theory to back up their world view. In the same way that half the fun of Art is pulling the wings and legs off the theory behind it then great tunes can sound better with something to think about...even if that something boils down to the 5 Devo oaths
Be like your ancestors or be different. It doesn't matter.
Lay a million eggs or give birth to one.
Wear gaudy colours or avoid display. It's all the same.
The fittest shall survive, yet the unfit may live.
We Must Repeat.
Not forgetting Casales idea of the potato "It's the self. And it's the all-seeing potato, it's got eyes everywhere, even in the back of it's head"
Never could see how it all tied in with Kent State though. Neil Young wrote Ohio, Buffalo Springfield released For What It's Worth. Devo went to the green grocers.
Devo spent the next few years playing often confrontational gigs. Their film The Truth About Devolution won a prize at the 1975 Ann Arbor festival. They put out 2 singles Mongoloid and their deconstruction of The Stone's Satisfaction on their own Booji Boy label in 76 and 77.
By the time they hit Britain though it was on the back of the New Wave in 1978 with a Brain Eno produced album, released on a bewildering selection of coloured vinyls. Q: Are We Not Men? A: We Are Devo. Call and response vocals, theories, dressing up and a band who could career jerkily round the stage and yet all step up to the mic simultaneously just like the Clash. They looked brilliant and of course they didn't sound like anyone else.
The album stands up really well today. Uncontrollable urge has got a fabulous yelping "Yeah Yeah Yeah Yeah Yeah Yeah Yeah Yeah Yeah Yeah Yeah” opening line. Well I think that says a lot and I also really like the call and response chorus, "He's got an uncontrollable urge " "I’ve got an uncontrollable urge". The guitars alternate between crisp riffing and a bendy spring string sound. If anything it's like a bastardised Twist and Shout
But not quite as big a bastard as Satisfaction. The backing track pops, scratches and scurries like a little Captain Beefheart hamster all twitchy nose and whiskers. It's absolutely unrecognisable as a Stones backing track. The vocals yelp the familiar Jagger consumer blues lyrics. Marvellous
Mongoloid has electronic drum thwackery, synthesizer sighs and the guitar sounds thick but distant. Normally you hear an electric guitar and you want to know that the air around the speaker is actually moving. Noise and movement. But then you would expect oddities on an Eno production.
Gut Feeling speeds up as it moves from House Of The Ring Sun sound to a Stranglers style keyboard whirl segueing straight into the jerkiness of Slap Your Mammy.
The first album has a great mix of unfamiliar sounds teased out of conventional; instruments. I remember breathlessly asking an older mate who'd just been to see them in 1978 what instruments they used, as in my head these sounds could only have been made using strange futuristic instruments. I was a bit disappointed when he said “Just normal ones” Probably not even star shaped guitars either.
On subsequent albums they fully embraced electronics. The 3rd album Freedom Of Choice released in 1980 had the big hit Whip It which became an MTV staple but I'd lost interest after the first album really. They did mange to continue without me though. Bizarrely Oh No It’s Devo was produced by Queen producer Roy Thomas Baker, but the game was pretty much up by 1984’s Shout album. Day jobs beckoned
Mark Mothersbaugh, started a music production company Mutato Muzika , for commercials, films and TV soundtracks including the Rugrats and The Royal Tenenbaums. Gerald Casales makes commercials and music videos and has worked with The Foo Fighters amongst others.
The last proper Devo album was Smooth Noodle Maps in 1990, but there have been one off tours and side projects such as Jihad Jerry And The Evildoers and also The Wipeouters. And of course…. Devo 2.0 which was the Disney backed creation of a Devo covers band of child musicians and actors, with the videos directed by Devo and the lyrics cleaned up. Ouch! And if you really want to know what that sounds like. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nnot_03IAbQ
A safer bet is Devo’s version of Satisfaction.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CvcuaJy9OwI&mode=related&search
Bassist Gerald Casales, Mark Mothersbaugh and original guitarist Bob Lewis were at Kent State University Ohio and had used the devolution concept or the idea of humans evolving into primitive forms as the basis for art exhibitions. The theory really took root with them with the killings at Kent State University in 1970 as 4 students were shot dead by The National Guard. Casales told The Vermont Review that "I was white hippie boy and then I saw exit wounds from M1 rifles out of the backs of two people I knew. Two of the four people who were killed, Jeffrey Miller and Allison Krause, were my friends… Until then I was a hippie. I thought that the world is essentially good. If people were evil, there was justice and that the law mattered. All of those silly naïve things. I saw the depths of the horrors and lies and the evil. In the paper that evening, the Akron Beacon Journal, said that students were running around armed and that officers had been hurt. So deputy sheriffs went out and deputized citizens. They drove around with shotguns and there was martial law for ten days. 7 PM curfew. It was open season for students. We lived in fear."
Like Malcolm Mclaren hanging Punk Rock up on the coat hooks of situationism and the Paris riots, Devo had a theory to back up their world view. In the same way that half the fun of Art is pulling the wings and legs off the theory behind it then great tunes can sound better with something to think about...even if that something boils down to the 5 Devo oaths
Be like your ancestors or be different. It doesn't matter.
Lay a million eggs or give birth to one.
Wear gaudy colours or avoid display. It's all the same.
The fittest shall survive, yet the unfit may live.
We Must Repeat.
Not forgetting Casales idea of the potato "It's the self. And it's the all-seeing potato, it's got eyes everywhere, even in the back of it's head"
Never could see how it all tied in with Kent State though. Neil Young wrote Ohio, Buffalo Springfield released For What It's Worth. Devo went to the green grocers.
Devo spent the next few years playing often confrontational gigs. Their film The Truth About Devolution won a prize at the 1975 Ann Arbor festival. They put out 2 singles Mongoloid and their deconstruction of The Stone's Satisfaction on their own Booji Boy label in 76 and 77.
By the time they hit Britain though it was on the back of the New Wave in 1978 with a Brain Eno produced album, released on a bewildering selection of coloured vinyls. Q: Are We Not Men? A: We Are Devo. Call and response vocals, theories, dressing up and a band who could career jerkily round the stage and yet all step up to the mic simultaneously just like the Clash. They looked brilliant and of course they didn't sound like anyone else.
The album stands up really well today. Uncontrollable urge has got a fabulous yelping "Yeah Yeah Yeah Yeah Yeah Yeah Yeah Yeah Yeah Yeah Yeah” opening line. Well I think that says a lot and I also really like the call and response chorus, "He's got an uncontrollable urge " "I’ve got an uncontrollable urge". The guitars alternate between crisp riffing and a bendy spring string sound. If anything it's like a bastardised Twist and Shout
But not quite as big a bastard as Satisfaction. The backing track pops, scratches and scurries like a little Captain Beefheart hamster all twitchy nose and whiskers. It's absolutely unrecognisable as a Stones backing track. The vocals yelp the familiar Jagger consumer blues lyrics. Marvellous
Mongoloid has electronic drum thwackery, synthesizer sighs and the guitar sounds thick but distant. Normally you hear an electric guitar and you want to know that the air around the speaker is actually moving. Noise and movement. But then you would expect oddities on an Eno production.
Gut Feeling speeds up as it moves from House Of The Ring Sun sound to a Stranglers style keyboard whirl segueing straight into the jerkiness of Slap Your Mammy.
The first album has a great mix of unfamiliar sounds teased out of conventional; instruments. I remember breathlessly asking an older mate who'd just been to see them in 1978 what instruments they used, as in my head these sounds could only have been made using strange futuristic instruments. I was a bit disappointed when he said “Just normal ones” Probably not even star shaped guitars either.
On subsequent albums they fully embraced electronics. The 3rd album Freedom Of Choice released in 1980 had the big hit Whip It which became an MTV staple but I'd lost interest after the first album really. They did mange to continue without me though. Bizarrely Oh No It’s Devo was produced by Queen producer Roy Thomas Baker, but the game was pretty much up by 1984’s Shout album. Day jobs beckoned
Mark Mothersbaugh, started a music production company Mutato Muzika , for commercials, films and TV soundtracks including the Rugrats and The Royal Tenenbaums. Gerald Casales makes commercials and music videos and has worked with The Foo Fighters amongst others.
The last proper Devo album was Smooth Noodle Maps in 1990, but there have been one off tours and side projects such as Jihad Jerry And The Evildoers and also The Wipeouters. And of course…. Devo 2.0 which was the Disney backed creation of a Devo covers band of child musicians and actors, with the videos directed by Devo and the lyrics cleaned up. Ouch! And if you really want to know what that sounds like. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nnot_03IAbQ
A safer bet is Devo’s version of Satisfaction.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CvcuaJy9OwI&mode=related&search
Monday, May 28, 2007
Art Brut
What exactly do you want in Pop Music?
There are times when I insist on chunky punky tunes, half spoken half shouted (and never knowingly sung) vocals, funny (but not novelty comedy) lyrics, arty leanings and maximum eyebrows.
Art Brut are just the band for those occasions.
Eddie Argos's luxuriant eyebrow and 'tache combination looks like something from a particularly gruelling bush tucker trial. It's not a Gallagher monobrow....these are free range beauties
There's definitely an arty chancer feel about the band. Now I don't know much about Art, but I know what I like...and what I like about Art is...it's usually to be found in interesting buildings full of arty women.
I also know that the name Art Brut comes from the translation of Raw Art, more commonly known as Outsider Art. One strand of it included art produced by psychiatric patients. It's the theory that Michael Stipe or Jarvis Cocker would use if they were trying to make an unwatchable video.
But would they have come up with a lyric as dumbly profound as Art Brut's song Modern Art. "Modern Art makes me wanna rock out. Wooooh!"
Eddie Argos used to be the singer in a band in his native Bournemouth called the Art Goblins and part of his stage act involved playing the vacuum cleaner and escaping from a sack. Art Brut though were formed in 2003 after he moved to London and pestered everyone he met at a party to form a band.
Debut single Formed A Band came out in 2004 with Argos declaring "Look at us, we formed a band...and yes this is my singing voice, it's not irony and it's not Rock 'n' Roll. We're just talking to The Kids."
Now we've been here before haven't we? Where the song describes what the singer is doing like Gang Of Four's Love Like Anthrax or Mark E Smiths lyric "I don't sing I just shout all on one note aah." And yes I do like that trick. And yes I like Formed A Band a lot too.
It sums up what Art Brut do, entertaining tunes and performances with quotable lyrics. They've also got a fine upstanding drummer (well he plays standing up)
In terms of Argos's vocals, though the closest match is Gerald Langley from Blue Aeroplanes. They had an arty bent and a Polish dancer Wojtek. (Historical note...the dancers were the amongst first wave of Polish migrants, just before the bus drivers and builders).
Their single Tolerance with it's meandering bassline was a DJ staple at The Click Club at Burberries in 86/87 and reason enough for me to go most weeks.
More knowing Pop referencing comes in the form of last years single Nag Nag Nag Nag which goes one Nag better than Cabaret Voltaire's mighty Sheffield industrial punk single Nag Nag Nag.
Art Brut's nagging has hanging chords, slight echoes of Magazine's Shot By Both Sides and there is a comic teenage petulance in Argos's lyrics:
"My record collection reduced to a mix tape/Headphones on I made my escape/I'm in a film with a personal soundtrack/I'm leaving home and I'm never gonna come back".
But when it comes to the lyric "I'm grown up now but refuse to learn that these were just adolescent concerns" there could be a lot of us diving for cover.
The significance and relevance of ideas about never growing up/extended adolescence/holding onto the things you think are important, depends on whether you're the accuser or accused. Guilty as charged M'lud...and I've got another box of records that I'd also like taken into consideration.
Good Weekend is a straight down to business celebration of his brand new girlfriend. It's a twisty shimmy of a song with a ringing snare intro and Gang Of Four crunchy guitars meeting B52's Love Shack. "I've seen her naked twice, I've seen her naked twice".
The video is worth a look just for the Eddie Argos Eyebrow experience
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AY4dQHsPdiI&mode=related&search=
More Brut goodies can be found at http://www.myspace.com/artbrut
Emily Kane is a plea to a long lost girl friend who may not know it but "If memory serves we're still on a break...Every girl that I've seen since, Looks just like you when I squint".
The debut album Bang Bang Rock 'n' Roll came out in 2005 and it's follow up It's A Bit Complicated is due out next month. They're fresh from touring with Maximo Park and visit Birmingham Academy 2 June 14th.
There are times when I insist on chunky punky tunes, half spoken half shouted (and never knowingly sung) vocals, funny (but not novelty comedy) lyrics, arty leanings and maximum eyebrows.
Art Brut are just the band for those occasions.
Eddie Argos's luxuriant eyebrow and 'tache combination looks like something from a particularly gruelling bush tucker trial. It's not a Gallagher monobrow....these are free range beauties
There's definitely an arty chancer feel about the band. Now I don't know much about Art, but I know what I like...and what I like about Art is...it's usually to be found in interesting buildings full of arty women.
I also know that the name Art Brut comes from the translation of Raw Art, more commonly known as Outsider Art. One strand of it included art produced by psychiatric patients. It's the theory that Michael Stipe or Jarvis Cocker would use if they were trying to make an unwatchable video.
But would they have come up with a lyric as dumbly profound as Art Brut's song Modern Art. "Modern Art makes me wanna rock out. Wooooh!"
Eddie Argos used to be the singer in a band in his native Bournemouth called the Art Goblins and part of his stage act involved playing the vacuum cleaner and escaping from a sack. Art Brut though were formed in 2003 after he moved to London and pestered everyone he met at a party to form a band.
Debut single Formed A Band came out in 2004 with Argos declaring "Look at us, we formed a band...and yes this is my singing voice, it's not irony and it's not Rock 'n' Roll. We're just talking to The Kids."
Now we've been here before haven't we? Where the song describes what the singer is doing like Gang Of Four's Love Like Anthrax or Mark E Smiths lyric "I don't sing I just shout all on one note aah." And yes I do like that trick. And yes I like Formed A Band a lot too.
It sums up what Art Brut do, entertaining tunes and performances with quotable lyrics. They've also got a fine upstanding drummer (well he plays standing up)
In terms of Argos's vocals, though the closest match is Gerald Langley from Blue Aeroplanes. They had an arty bent and a Polish dancer Wojtek. (Historical note...the dancers were the amongst first wave of Polish migrants, just before the bus drivers and builders).
Their single Tolerance with it's meandering bassline was a DJ staple at The Click Club at Burberries in 86/87 and reason enough for me to go most weeks.
More knowing Pop referencing comes in the form of last years single Nag Nag Nag Nag which goes one Nag better than Cabaret Voltaire's mighty Sheffield industrial punk single Nag Nag Nag.
Art Brut's nagging has hanging chords, slight echoes of Magazine's Shot By Both Sides and there is a comic teenage petulance in Argos's lyrics:
"My record collection reduced to a mix tape/Headphones on I made my escape/I'm in a film with a personal soundtrack/I'm leaving home and I'm never gonna come back".
But when it comes to the lyric "I'm grown up now but refuse to learn that these were just adolescent concerns" there could be a lot of us diving for cover.
The significance and relevance of ideas about never growing up/extended adolescence/holding onto the things you think are important, depends on whether you're the accuser or accused. Guilty as charged M'lud...and I've got another box of records that I'd also like taken into consideration.
Good Weekend is a straight down to business celebration of his brand new girlfriend. It's a twisty shimmy of a song with a ringing snare intro and Gang Of Four crunchy guitars meeting B52's Love Shack. "I've seen her naked twice, I've seen her naked twice".
The video is worth a look just for the Eddie Argos Eyebrow experience
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AY4dQHsPdiI&mode=related&search=
More Brut goodies can be found at http://www.myspace.com/artbrut
Emily Kane is a plea to a long lost girl friend who may not know it but "If memory serves we're still on a break...Every girl that I've seen since, Looks just like you when I squint".
The debut album Bang Bang Rock 'n' Roll came out in 2005 and it's follow up It's A Bit Complicated is due out next month. They're fresh from touring with Maximo Park and visit Birmingham Academy 2 June 14th.
Friday, May 25, 2007
Cherry Ghost
You do already know “Mathematics” by Cherry Ghost. It sounded equally at home on Radios 1, 2 and 6 but wherever you heard it was usually better than the records on either side if it. And like nothing else you'd heard that day...
Unless you spend your days listening to melancholic but uplifting Country waltzes, drenched in strings and glockenspiels, sung by a 30s something with his heart in Nashville and his boots in Bolton.
Cherry Ghost is actually the alter ego of Simon Aldred, who after years of playing in bands found that both the times and life experience had caught up with him.
"I guess it depends on what kind of music you do as to when you become good at it. I think probably, if you're doing rock n'roll, it requires a lot of youth and enthusiasm so, probably, your chances are better when you're first starting out in music. I'm a big fan of Johnny Cash; kind of the more weather-worn singer-songwriters so it was just, kind of, learning the art of songwriting basically, and it took a while.”
He worked as a book keeper, sold store cards and was a maths tutor. It's not picking cotton or working on the railroad, but that's the thing with Country Music and it's modern spin off, Americana.
The cliche may be that it's all death, divorce and drinking, but because the lyrics have always been so important to Country as a genre, it does give the smart musician some real room to manoeuvre.
And there is the whole history of Country music to work with, where it became The Establishment but still loved its rebels. And you can do it as you get older, and wear great shirts, cowboy boots, open a theme park like Dolly Parton's Dollywood, have your own fast food spin off (Kenny Rodgers Roasters) or your own designer jeans with a shotgun pocket (King Kenny again).
The question is why would anyone want to play anything else?
Aldred cites Bill Callahan, Sparklehorse and Wilco (Cherry Ghost comes from a lyric in “Theologians”) as influences and there is a Vic Chesnutt wooziness to some of the songs. The closest comparison though is Richard Hawley.
Although he'd played in bands for years, schlepping around in vans, knocking on record company doors, the actual breakthrough gig was a 20 minute solo acoustic set at a Glasgow Mexican restaurant after demos of “Mathematics” started to circulate.
“I played for 20 minutes, just me and a guitar. People started putting offers in the next day.It was a matter of three or four months from writing the tune to being offered five record deals"
He signed to Heavenly, which gives it a stamp of quality, having given board and lodgings, or at least a helping hand to artists as excellent and diverse as Manic Street preachers, St Etienne, The Rockingbirds, Beth Orton and The Magic Numbers.
Mathematics is an extraordinary record, the richness of the strings, the melancholy and slightly pinched sound of Aldred's vocal and the lyrical progression from self-awareness to inevitability, as Aldred sings “It's funny how I always seem to alienate the people that I'm trying to impress/Cold mathematics is making it's move on me now”.
I love its opening line “Meet my on the corner by the fire escape and I'll be waiting”. There are not enough songs about fire escapes. (But while it is important to be able to evacuate a burning building in a timely manner it also needs to be remembered that Scott Walker's Big Louise is the ultimate fire escape song).
Cherry Ghost appeared on Jules Holland Later last year playing a stripped down version of forthcoming single “People Help The People”. Piano powered, with a bottleneck guitar swell and the lovely simplicity of the lyric - “And if you're homesick, give me a hand and I'll hold it”.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I8bRXxEusTk
It's just gone from his My Space site but “4am” was a corker. With it's picked guitar and brushed drums, it's got the sprightly feel of Kenny Rodgers’ “Ruby Don't take Your Love To Town”. It sounds supple and slyly rude. Possibly like the old silver fox himself.
There have been support slots with Amy Winehouse and The Magic Numbers, and he has been known to play 90's dance anthem “Suddenly” by CeCe Peniston (careful how you pronounce it)
Unless you spend your days listening to melancholic but uplifting Country waltzes, drenched in strings and glockenspiels, sung by a 30s something with his heart in Nashville and his boots in Bolton.
Cherry Ghost is actually the alter ego of Simon Aldred, who after years of playing in bands found that both the times and life experience had caught up with him.
"I guess it depends on what kind of music you do as to when you become good at it. I think probably, if you're doing rock n'roll, it requires a lot of youth and enthusiasm so, probably, your chances are better when you're first starting out in music. I'm a big fan of Johnny Cash; kind of the more weather-worn singer-songwriters so it was just, kind of, learning the art of songwriting basically, and it took a while.”
He worked as a book keeper, sold store cards and was a maths tutor. It's not picking cotton or working on the railroad, but that's the thing with Country Music and it's modern spin off, Americana.
The cliche may be that it's all death, divorce and drinking, but because the lyrics have always been so important to Country as a genre, it does give the smart musician some real room to manoeuvre.
And there is the whole history of Country music to work with, where it became The Establishment but still loved its rebels. And you can do it as you get older, and wear great shirts, cowboy boots, open a theme park like Dolly Parton's Dollywood, have your own fast food spin off (Kenny Rodgers Roasters) or your own designer jeans with a shotgun pocket (King Kenny again).
The question is why would anyone want to play anything else?
Aldred cites Bill Callahan, Sparklehorse and Wilco (Cherry Ghost comes from a lyric in “Theologians”) as influences and there is a Vic Chesnutt wooziness to some of the songs. The closest comparison though is Richard Hawley.
Although he'd played in bands for years, schlepping around in vans, knocking on record company doors, the actual breakthrough gig was a 20 minute solo acoustic set at a Glasgow Mexican restaurant after demos of “Mathematics” started to circulate.
“I played for 20 minutes, just me and a guitar. People started putting offers in the next day.It was a matter of three or four months from writing the tune to being offered five record deals"
He signed to Heavenly, which gives it a stamp of quality, having given board and lodgings, or at least a helping hand to artists as excellent and diverse as Manic Street preachers, St Etienne, The Rockingbirds, Beth Orton and The Magic Numbers.
Mathematics is an extraordinary record, the richness of the strings, the melancholy and slightly pinched sound of Aldred's vocal and the lyrical progression from self-awareness to inevitability, as Aldred sings “It's funny how I always seem to alienate the people that I'm trying to impress/Cold mathematics is making it's move on me now”.
I love its opening line “Meet my on the corner by the fire escape and I'll be waiting”. There are not enough songs about fire escapes. (But while it is important to be able to evacuate a burning building in a timely manner it also needs to be remembered that Scott Walker's Big Louise is the ultimate fire escape song).
Cherry Ghost appeared on Jules Holland Later last year playing a stripped down version of forthcoming single “People Help The People”. Piano powered, with a bottleneck guitar swell and the lovely simplicity of the lyric - “And if you're homesick, give me a hand and I'll hold it”.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I8bRXxEusTk
It's just gone from his My Space site but “4am” was a corker. With it's picked guitar and brushed drums, it's got the sprightly feel of Kenny Rodgers’ “Ruby Don't take Your Love To Town”. It sounds supple and slyly rude. Possibly like the old silver fox himself.
There have been support slots with Amy Winehouse and The Magic Numbers, and he has been known to play 90's dance anthem “Suddenly” by CeCe Peniston (careful how you pronounce it)
Sunday, May 13, 2007
The Hold Steady
The Hold Steady and Arctic Monkeys were both on Jools Holland’s Later last week. They both do drinking songs about damaged characters and bad behaviour in clubs and bars, reportage from the front line of the sidelines. But the difference is …different tactics, different ages and different sides of the Atlantic.
The key to the Arctic Monkeys is Alex Turner’s lyrics and the bilious disgust in his voice. That’s what drags you into Monkeyland…. and while there’s a real pleasure in the spiky backing tracks, the instruments are just there to provide a backing to the vocals. That’s it. It’s fast and frantic, but it’s percussive and not melodic. The tunes have no tunes. I can’t see the music inspiring a generation of copycat guitar players, whereas the lyrics will. It’s all in the lyrics and attitude. I’ve also yet to read to read an interesting Arctic Monkeys interview, but apparently you can charge what you like for tiling a bathroom in London.
The Arctic Monkeys album was released last month, while The Hold Steady’s break through third album Boys And Girls In America came out in the US last year.
The Hold Steady bring you something you didn’t know you wanted. They’re still story songs but it’s Bruce Springsteen, AC/DC and Mott The Hoople played by a bunch of beardy 30 somethings with the musical skills and confidence so that it sounds like they could really do this all night. The lyrics are sharp, intelligent and literate and Craig Finn’s thick gargling holler of a voice rolls over the music, bouncing off the riffs or just getting on with the business of getting the stories out. Both the vocals and the music beneath stand up in their own right (unlike the characters that both Arctic Monkeys and The Hold Steady sing about).
The Hold Steady look like they’ve escaped the Stylist. Craig Finn sports the kind of full regular guy beard last seen on Discovery Home and Leisure features on master carpenters and fishing documentaries. The keyboard player’s curly waxed ‘tache looks it came off a mime artist…and it really should come off. There are also hats. Not good hats either.
Stuck Between Stations is the most Springsteen esque track, mainly for the Thunder Road type breakdown and piano. The ascending riff under the chorus though is like the mighty riff that underpins U2’s A Beautiful Day. You know, when the plane is coming down low enough for the pilot to see the pattern on the carpet but not quite low enough to take Bono’s head off. (I know Bono’s an easy target, but I never feel bad about taking the piss…after all it takes the pressure off Sting!)
The opening line of Stuck Between Stations is the Kerouac quoting “There are nights when I think that Sal Paradise was right, Boys and Girls in America have such a sad time together”
The chorus just made me sit up though.
“She was a real cool kisser and she wasn’t all that strict of a Christian, She was damn good dancer but she wasn’t all that great of a girlfriend.” It’s just an excellent line from an unlikely looking band. Sung with utter conviction over righteous riffing.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Nhwmk8mAaII
Finn grew w up in Minneapolis and his favourite band was The Replacements. As a kid he was impressed by the way that they used local references like the street names in Run It which is a song about jumping red lights. “Lyndale, Garfield Run it”
“I loved the Descendents. They sang about getting no chicks, and that's something I knew a whole lot about.” One of the dirtier Descendents asked Finn and his friends if they knew any girls who would…ahem…help him out. “If we knew that, what would we be doing at a Descendents show?”
On the second album Separation Sunday, he uses the characters of Hallelujah and Charlemagne to tell the tale of the “A real sweet girl who made some not sweet friends” but comes back from the brink/dead on How A Resurrection Really Feels. It’s all very growing up suburban and Catholic.
“I moved to New York when I was 29 years old, so maybe you’re hanging out with a better quality of person. When you’re 18, there’s some idiots who are like, “We’re gonna go drink this under a bridge, you wanna come?” And you’re like, “Yeah. Absolutely. How would we not want to drink under a bridge?” I think Minneapolis is pretty unique. The delinquents out there are pretty delinquent. And everyone’s got a car, so there’s like, a lot of mobility. A lot of bad ideas can be put into action quickly. ‘Cause you can like, haul stuff”
The Chillout Tent from the 3rd album tells the romantic tale of a boy (“Tennyson in denim and sheepskin, He looked a lot like Izzy Stradlin”) and a girl who have separate chemical calamities at a festival and regain consciousness in the Chillout Tent and start kissing as the nurses take them off their drips. It’s sung as a duet with Elizabeth Elmore. (Dave Pirner from Soul Asylum, another Minneapolis resident, is also on there.) It’s one of the standout tracks from the album, but scarily the boy girl vocals on the chorus end up sounding like Meatloaf. Also scarily …I like it.
The Hold Steady’s current label is Vagrant which is also the home of Paul Westerberg (The Replacements) and The Lemonheads. They’re playing in Portsmouth, London and Manchester in July. They feel like a band where you need to suspend your cynicism and possibly even consider using phrases like “The redemptive power of Rock ‘n’ Roll.” The Hold Steady sound like other bands…but better. The Arctic Monkeys don’t really sound like anyone else. And certainly would never talk about Rock ‘n’ Roll (except maybe in connection with a sadder, older, more desperate character in one of their songs)…. But do they sound better?
The key to the Arctic Monkeys is Alex Turner’s lyrics and the bilious disgust in his voice. That’s what drags you into Monkeyland…. and while there’s a real pleasure in the spiky backing tracks, the instruments are just there to provide a backing to the vocals. That’s it. It’s fast and frantic, but it’s percussive and not melodic. The tunes have no tunes. I can’t see the music inspiring a generation of copycat guitar players, whereas the lyrics will. It’s all in the lyrics and attitude. I’ve also yet to read to read an interesting Arctic Monkeys interview, but apparently you can charge what you like for tiling a bathroom in London.
The Arctic Monkeys album was released last month, while The Hold Steady’s break through third album Boys And Girls In America came out in the US last year.
The Hold Steady bring you something you didn’t know you wanted. They’re still story songs but it’s Bruce Springsteen, AC/DC and Mott The Hoople played by a bunch of beardy 30 somethings with the musical skills and confidence so that it sounds like they could really do this all night. The lyrics are sharp, intelligent and literate and Craig Finn’s thick gargling holler of a voice rolls over the music, bouncing off the riffs or just getting on with the business of getting the stories out. Both the vocals and the music beneath stand up in their own right (unlike the characters that both Arctic Monkeys and The Hold Steady sing about).
The Hold Steady look like they’ve escaped the Stylist. Craig Finn sports the kind of full regular guy beard last seen on Discovery Home and Leisure features on master carpenters and fishing documentaries. The keyboard player’s curly waxed ‘tache looks it came off a mime artist…and it really should come off. There are also hats. Not good hats either.
Stuck Between Stations is the most Springsteen esque track, mainly for the Thunder Road type breakdown and piano. The ascending riff under the chorus though is like the mighty riff that underpins U2’s A Beautiful Day. You know, when the plane is coming down low enough for the pilot to see the pattern on the carpet but not quite low enough to take Bono’s head off. (I know Bono’s an easy target, but I never feel bad about taking the piss…after all it takes the pressure off Sting!)
The opening line of Stuck Between Stations is the Kerouac quoting “There are nights when I think that Sal Paradise was right, Boys and Girls in America have such a sad time together”
The chorus just made me sit up though.
“She was a real cool kisser and she wasn’t all that strict of a Christian, She was damn good dancer but she wasn’t all that great of a girlfriend.” It’s just an excellent line from an unlikely looking band. Sung with utter conviction over righteous riffing.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Nhwmk8mAaII
Finn grew w up in Minneapolis and his favourite band was The Replacements. As a kid he was impressed by the way that they used local references like the street names in Run It which is a song about jumping red lights. “Lyndale, Garfield Run it”
“I loved the Descendents. They sang about getting no chicks, and that's something I knew a whole lot about.” One of the dirtier Descendents asked Finn and his friends if they knew any girls who would…ahem…help him out. “If we knew that, what would we be doing at a Descendents show?”
On the second album Separation Sunday, he uses the characters of Hallelujah and Charlemagne to tell the tale of the “A real sweet girl who made some not sweet friends” but comes back from the brink/dead on How A Resurrection Really Feels. It’s all very growing up suburban and Catholic.
“I moved to New York when I was 29 years old, so maybe you’re hanging out with a better quality of person. When you’re 18, there’s some idiots who are like, “We’re gonna go drink this under a bridge, you wanna come?” And you’re like, “Yeah. Absolutely. How would we not want to drink under a bridge?” I think Minneapolis is pretty unique. The delinquents out there are pretty delinquent. And everyone’s got a car, so there’s like, a lot of mobility. A lot of bad ideas can be put into action quickly. ‘Cause you can like, haul stuff”
The Chillout Tent from the 3rd album tells the romantic tale of a boy (“Tennyson in denim and sheepskin, He looked a lot like Izzy Stradlin”) and a girl who have separate chemical calamities at a festival and regain consciousness in the Chillout Tent and start kissing as the nurses take them off their drips. It’s sung as a duet with Elizabeth Elmore. (Dave Pirner from Soul Asylum, another Minneapolis resident, is also on there.) It’s one of the standout tracks from the album, but scarily the boy girl vocals on the chorus end up sounding like Meatloaf. Also scarily …I like it.
The Hold Steady’s current label is Vagrant which is also the home of Paul Westerberg (The Replacements) and The Lemonheads. They’re playing in Portsmouth, London and Manchester in July. They feel like a band where you need to suspend your cynicism and possibly even consider using phrases like “The redemptive power of Rock ‘n’ Roll.” The Hold Steady sound like other bands…but better. The Arctic Monkeys don’t really sound like anyone else. And certainly would never talk about Rock ‘n’ Roll (except maybe in connection with a sadder, older, more desperate character in one of their songs)…. But do they sound better?
Tuesday, May 08, 2007
Julian Cope
Is Julian Cope the Greatest Living Englishmen? Well he's more convincing in the stack heels and pointy hat department than Stephen Fry.
The thing about Cope is that he's pursued all the things that interested him, wants to others to share that interest and completely understands the importance of the grand gesture. From music to stone circles, he's a 21st century renaissance man with his heart in the Neolithic and his head in Haight Ashbury. Ok maybe he's not he's Psychedelic Da Vinci but his precarious balancing act between Pre historic Professor, dribbling loon, dogged music ferret, Shaman and shambles, Idiot Savant and idiot idiot is all done with such enthusiasm and charm.
There's a huge Cope back catalogue to work through from the Teardrop Explodes brief pop career through his mixed bag of solo albums. Since the late 90s he has withdrawn from the mainstream Record Industry, releasing material through his own labels and website. Although there is a lot to love about the man and his music, part of the real value of Copey is the interviews, his persona and the books. His monthly address to the nation is always worth a read and is always a good pointer to unusual music. (http://www.headheritage.co.uk/addressdrudion/96/2007/) His two autobiographies are both essential reading; well written, musically literate and chock full of some scary/funny drug stories from a man whose head was either in the clouds or up his arse.
Head On covers Copey's Tamworth childhood, escape to Liverpool Punk scene, the Teardrop Explodes brief brush with Pop Stardom in all it's Smash Hits glory and Cope’s transformation from resolutely drug free to determinedly drug filled.
It's really good at capturing the intensity of the desire in the early Liverpool days to make the band work. All the characters involved were out of control. Drummer Gary Dwyer spent one tour with a cassette of Frank Sinatra in his unchanged pants. Anyone unfortunate enough to fall asleep was likely to wake up to the sight of Dwyer "Getting the Frank out". People it’s bad…. but not as disgusting as Sacky Bill. This was Dwyer’s ability to stretch his bag over his bell and up to his belly until his genitals "Looked like a turtle covered in a tarpaulin."
Even as Reward was a hit, with its video of searchlights, the careering jeep (they bought it) and Copey in his now established uniform of leather flying jacket and jodhpurs, The Public were turning on him. Now I think an opening line of "Bless my cotton socks I'm in the news" the brass fanfare and swirling bass and keyboards is unbeatable. Some other people do not. Cope quotes 1981's best joke as
"What's the difference between a Cow and The Teardrop Explodes?"
"A Cow has got a twat at the back and horns at the front"
The first album was recorded with Cope dressed as Lawrence of Arabia and each morning Cope and Dwyer would take acid and ride down to the studio on imaginary horses. “I called mine Dobbin, Gary called his Bumhead”. By the sessions for the aborted third album they were playing a game called Brick where 2 people stood 15 feet apart and threw a brick at each other. Cope had the (Acid) advantage and he could see the vapour trails coming off the brick…. others were not so lucky.
I saw The Teardrops in Manchester during the Wilder tour. During a climactic final moment Cope ran towards a monitor looking as if he was going to do something dramatic.... as he tried to move it he realised that he couldn’t.... so he slunk off stage instead. It got worse. At one of their final gigs they, incongruously, supported Queen at Milton Keynes Bowl and were upstaged by Queen’s helicopter touching down mid gig. At their final Manchester gig at The University the tape machine broke and Copey stripped off. Milli Vanilli to Willy Vanilli
The second book Repossessed covers the period after the Teardrops split, as Cope retreated to Tamworth and started to revisit his childhood and rebuild his own myths about the landscape. In 1984 he sneaked 2 solo albums out past the record company (who’d only kept him on because he shared management with Tears For Fears) including Fried where he's naked under a tortoiseshell. I’ve always liked the albums but from a professional point of view, the industry had written him off, he’d become a byword for underachieving loon and he was underperforming at key gigs. He describes watching the support band The Woodentops as they used all his tricks and made it work. While the craziness of the first book is laugh out loud funny, it gets bleaker for the Tamworth years.
He started collecting toy cars, keeping them in a room in the attic. But he blocked up the door so that the only way to reach the sanctuary of the toy room was to crawl through a tunnel running the full length of the house. In 1985 his new obsession was speed walking round Drayton Bassett. Obviously he had a special outfit for it…. long johns and a hat made form his wife Dorian’s fake fur collars.
They became reclusive, unable to deal with the overflowing toilet and stockpiling food for an unspecified but imminent disaster. Eventually though they needed to go to the shop. He didn’t know how to get to the supermarket but couldn’t face calling a taxi. So he set off walking until eventually his path was blocked by a river.which he tried and failed to jump over. He eventually got to the supermarket but left a trail of silt along the aisles.
1987’s St Julian album and the accompanying tour saw him rejuvenated though, with a clanging “2 car garage band” sound and the Cosmic Asshole mike stand that that was equal parts mike stand, scaffolding and pulpit. The follow up, My Nation Underground was not the album that the record company, Cope or I wanted though. Cue another dispute and Copey sulk, and cue his sneaky recordings Skellington and Droolian. They go the full range from whimsical to silly, from acid casualty mumblings to Jelly Pop Jerky Jean’s pop perfection about Japanese hair spray. Unlikely to win new fans, but sure to remind the old ones exactly why they liked him.
The career highs are the Peggy Suicide and Jehovah Kill albums. Both sprawling, sweeping epics, with elements of Prog rock, Funkadelic, eco themes, Paganism and Goddess Worship and big-hearted Pop tunes like Beautiful Love or Try Try Try.
He’s now acknowledged as an expert on Neolithic sites and his books The Modern Antiquarian and The Megalithic European are huge labours of love based on visits to hundreds of sites across Europe. Part travelogue, part prehistoric guidebook.
“I'm past the stage of trying to theorize about these places. I know what I believe, but I'm more interested in getting other people to see for themselves. Yes, the book is heavyweight and archaeologically thorough, but, better still, it's full of amazingly photogenic sites across Europe that would make anyone travel”
Last time Cope was at The Glee Club, he delivered an entertaining talk that spanned uptight druid control freaks and Neolithic rock n rollers. This time round he promises old songs, lots of new songs from the new album You Gotta Problem With Me imminent and old Teardrop Explodes songs to celebrate 25 years since the split.
The thing about Cope is that he's pursued all the things that interested him, wants to others to share that interest and completely understands the importance of the grand gesture. From music to stone circles, he's a 21st century renaissance man with his heart in the Neolithic and his head in Haight Ashbury. Ok maybe he's not he's Psychedelic Da Vinci but his precarious balancing act between Pre historic Professor, dribbling loon, dogged music ferret, Shaman and shambles, Idiot Savant and idiot idiot is all done with such enthusiasm and charm.
There's a huge Cope back catalogue to work through from the Teardrop Explodes brief pop career through his mixed bag of solo albums. Since the late 90s he has withdrawn from the mainstream Record Industry, releasing material through his own labels and website. Although there is a lot to love about the man and his music, part of the real value of Copey is the interviews, his persona and the books. His monthly address to the nation is always worth a read and is always a good pointer to unusual music. (http://www.headheritage.co.uk/addressdrudion/96/2007/) His two autobiographies are both essential reading; well written, musically literate and chock full of some scary/funny drug stories from a man whose head was either in the clouds or up his arse.
Head On covers Copey's Tamworth childhood, escape to Liverpool Punk scene, the Teardrop Explodes brief brush with Pop Stardom in all it's Smash Hits glory and Cope’s transformation from resolutely drug free to determinedly drug filled.
It's really good at capturing the intensity of the desire in the early Liverpool days to make the band work. All the characters involved were out of control. Drummer Gary Dwyer spent one tour with a cassette of Frank Sinatra in his unchanged pants. Anyone unfortunate enough to fall asleep was likely to wake up to the sight of Dwyer "Getting the Frank out". People it’s bad…. but not as disgusting as Sacky Bill. This was Dwyer’s ability to stretch his bag over his bell and up to his belly until his genitals "Looked like a turtle covered in a tarpaulin."
Even as Reward was a hit, with its video of searchlights, the careering jeep (they bought it) and Copey in his now established uniform of leather flying jacket and jodhpurs, The Public were turning on him. Now I think an opening line of "Bless my cotton socks I'm in the news" the brass fanfare and swirling bass and keyboards is unbeatable. Some other people do not. Cope quotes 1981's best joke as
"What's the difference between a Cow and The Teardrop Explodes?"
"A Cow has got a twat at the back and horns at the front"
The first album was recorded with Cope dressed as Lawrence of Arabia and each morning Cope and Dwyer would take acid and ride down to the studio on imaginary horses. “I called mine Dobbin, Gary called his Bumhead”. By the sessions for the aborted third album they were playing a game called Brick where 2 people stood 15 feet apart and threw a brick at each other. Cope had the (Acid) advantage and he could see the vapour trails coming off the brick…. others were not so lucky.
I saw The Teardrops in Manchester during the Wilder tour. During a climactic final moment Cope ran towards a monitor looking as if he was going to do something dramatic.... as he tried to move it he realised that he couldn’t.... so he slunk off stage instead. It got worse. At one of their final gigs they, incongruously, supported Queen at Milton Keynes Bowl and were upstaged by Queen’s helicopter touching down mid gig. At their final Manchester gig at The University the tape machine broke and Copey stripped off. Milli Vanilli to Willy Vanilli
The second book Repossessed covers the period after the Teardrops split, as Cope retreated to Tamworth and started to revisit his childhood and rebuild his own myths about the landscape. In 1984 he sneaked 2 solo albums out past the record company (who’d only kept him on because he shared management with Tears For Fears) including Fried where he's naked under a tortoiseshell. I’ve always liked the albums but from a professional point of view, the industry had written him off, he’d become a byword for underachieving loon and he was underperforming at key gigs. He describes watching the support band The Woodentops as they used all his tricks and made it work. While the craziness of the first book is laugh out loud funny, it gets bleaker for the Tamworth years.
He started collecting toy cars, keeping them in a room in the attic. But he blocked up the door so that the only way to reach the sanctuary of the toy room was to crawl through a tunnel running the full length of the house. In 1985 his new obsession was speed walking round Drayton Bassett. Obviously he had a special outfit for it…. long johns and a hat made form his wife Dorian’s fake fur collars.
They became reclusive, unable to deal with the overflowing toilet and stockpiling food for an unspecified but imminent disaster. Eventually though they needed to go to the shop. He didn’t know how to get to the supermarket but couldn’t face calling a taxi. So he set off walking until eventually his path was blocked by a river.which he tried and failed to jump over. He eventually got to the supermarket but left a trail of silt along the aisles.
1987’s St Julian album and the accompanying tour saw him rejuvenated though, with a clanging “2 car garage band” sound and the Cosmic Asshole mike stand that that was equal parts mike stand, scaffolding and pulpit. The follow up, My Nation Underground was not the album that the record company, Cope or I wanted though. Cue another dispute and Copey sulk, and cue his sneaky recordings Skellington and Droolian. They go the full range from whimsical to silly, from acid casualty mumblings to Jelly Pop Jerky Jean’s pop perfection about Japanese hair spray. Unlikely to win new fans, but sure to remind the old ones exactly why they liked him.
The career highs are the Peggy Suicide and Jehovah Kill albums. Both sprawling, sweeping epics, with elements of Prog rock, Funkadelic, eco themes, Paganism and Goddess Worship and big-hearted Pop tunes like Beautiful Love or Try Try Try.
He’s now acknowledged as an expert on Neolithic sites and his books The Modern Antiquarian and The Megalithic European are huge labours of love based on visits to hundreds of sites across Europe. Part travelogue, part prehistoric guidebook.
“I'm past the stage of trying to theorize about these places. I know what I believe, but I'm more interested in getting other people to see for themselves. Yes, the book is heavyweight and archaeologically thorough, but, better still, it's full of amazingly photogenic sites across Europe that would make anyone travel”
Last time Cope was at The Glee Club, he delivered an entertaining talk that spanned uptight druid control freaks and Neolithic rock n rollers. This time round he promises old songs, lots of new songs from the new album You Gotta Problem With Me imminent and old Teardrop Explodes songs to celebrate 25 years since the split.
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